Gardner surrenders his license for James Bond-ing to package a multi-generational saga about the Railtons, a spy family synonymous with British Intelligence and Security, whose undercover exploits herein stretch from 1909 to 1935 and who dash wonderfully about most of the civilized world. When General Sir William Arthur Railton VC KCB DSO, who made reconnaissance, fought and was wounded at the battle of Balaclava, dies in 1909, he leaves his inheritance to his son John rather than to his brother Giles, the family's wiliest and very deserving eldest member. Resolutely, Giles sets out like a Grand Master to navigate the family through this crisis. First off, Giles engineers John's younger brother Charles' befuddled transfer from the Diplomatic Service to Military Operations 5 (MO5), the newly born British Intelligence, staffed so far by only one officer and his clerk. This is the organization meant to weld Britain's espionage activities into one formidable force. But already the Fenians are penetrating the Railton family through Malcolm Railton's wife Bridget, from Dublin, while Gustav Steinhauer, new head of the Kaiser's vast spy system, is set on fulfilling Wilhelm's vision of the German Imperial Navy—and not Britannia—as master of the great oceans. All of the Railtons, of whom there are many, sooner or later wind up in Intelligence of one sort or another, even the wives, though Giles' family does not know of his full involvement in the purchase of British shares in the new Suez Canal, his dark works in India and Egypt, his secret sessions with the new revolutionaries Lenin and Trotsky. And yet it is Giles, who in the evening of his life, embraces a foreign ideology—has a personal Road-to-Damascus revelation about the power and wealth he was born into—and becomes through horrific betrayal "the first of the really great modern traitors." This is Gardner at his best. Here his quick brilliance at characterization and incredible density of anecdote and plot are far superior in tale-spinning elan to his strong start then fading interest in three appearances as Ian Fleming's glamorous ghost. The Railtons are his chef-d'oeuvre in the arts of melodrama, delicious in their adaptability to the varied countries they pass through, marvelously Byzantine as they begin spying on each other as well as on their enemies. A dynasty this strongly established is sure to return.
Pub Date: Nov. 21, 1985
ISBN: 0552124885
Page Count: 541
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1985
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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