A jumpy and complex spy puzzle—scooting back and forth between 1941 and 1978—that's pretty darn good but should perhaps have been a great deal better; one often has the feeling with the prolific John Gardner (The Werewolf Trance) that a really first-rate spy novel would emerge if he'd only give it enough time to grow. The contrived shenanigans here begin in 1978 when a middle-aged German woman appears in London, inquiring about the grave of her husband—a Nazi spy allegedly executed during World War II. But Herbie Kruger of British Intelligence, who sees this frau as a potential recruit for his new European espionage network, finds no record of such a Nazi spy—till he digs out some old top-security Fries about Operation Nostradamus, a WW II plan to create dissension among Nazi bigwigs by playing on their belief in the occult soothsayings of 16th-century seer Michel de Nostradame. Herbie, determined to ferret out the frau's complete background, enlists the help of a survivor of Op Nostradamus, now a top man at British Intelligence, who agrees to recall the whole 1941 operation (his first) in detail. Thus the recurring flashbacks—about the young British agent's arrival in France, about his passionate affair with a Resistance mademoiselle, and about the occult-spreading mission and how it somehow escalated into an assassination attempt on Himmler deep in Germany. Meanwhile, back in 1978, someone's trying to kill the frau; and the link between past and present turns out to be a winner indeed—the sort of gnarled fabric that Le Carre would have fine-stitched into a dark, rich tapestry. With Gardner, however, one admires the cleverness but winds up wondering why the book that leads up to it—except for big, slow, Mahler-loving Herbie, who's a dandily downbeat hero-never settles down and takes hold. Still: yards above the run of the espionage mill.
Pub Date: May 25, 1979
ISBN: 0553141457
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1979
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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