A lively thriller with plenty of unexpected developments.
In this prequel to Cunningham’s (Maroon Rising, 2015, etc.) adventure series, a treasure hunter’s quick rise to fame and wealth takes a nose dive, due to circumstances involving deceit and murder.
By 2006, Buck Reilly’s treasure-hunting company, e-Antiquity, which he co-founded and owns with Jack Dodson, has enjoyed its share of success. But when Buck finds a Serpent King’s tomb, filled with numerous artifacts, in the former Mayan city of El Mirador, it causes his company’s stock to skyrocket. This is accompanied by lavish media attention, primarily aimed at Buck, in part due to his relationship with supermodel Heather Drake. Their honeymoon in the British Virgin Islands, however, is ruined when Buck ends up wrongfully jailed for murder. He narrowly avoids a conviction, but the damage, it seems, is done. The company’s stock drops, and the public revels in reports that Buck’s latest archaeological sites are turning up nothing. This puts a strain on both his marriage and his relationship with Jack, who’s handling the company’s financial side. Soon, Interpol and the FBI are knocking on e-Antiquity’s doors, accusing Buck of all sorts of other crimes. Cunningham’s zigzagging plot is invigorating, as Buck faces a range of threats, from potential arrest to an estranged wife. A few of the plot turns are predictable, even for readers who may be new to the series, but most prove to be genuinely surprising. The author’s confident narrative voice adds weight to the narrative, whether the mood is light (Buck and Heather “making a dedicated effort to flatten out the lumpy mattress”) or baleful (“The bright light of reality made me wince,” notes Buck as he faces possible charges). Many secondary characters are multilayered, as well, such as the shrewd, professional research partner Scarlet Roberson and Buck’s underhanded, meticulous betrayer.
A lively thriller with plenty of unexpected developments.Pub Date: March 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9987965-0-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: Greene Street, LLC
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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