The fact-based epic of an unconquerable WW II skipper's determination to escape the surrender of Corregidorpublished to coincide with the 50th anniversary of V-J Day. The Pacific theater, 1942. As Japanese Zeroes fire round after punishing round at the tiny Philippine island, Admiral Nimitz plans a counterstrike based on his cryptographers' success in cracking the Japanese military code: Knowing that Admiral Yamamoto plans to attack Midway on Emperor Hirohito's birthday, Nimitz will lure the Japanese Navy into a trap. Taking his cue from Lt. Cmdr. John H. Morrill's 1943 memoir South from Corregidor, Gobbell unfolds the tale of Lt. Todd Ingram, who commandeers a tiny boat in the last hours of the Japanese bombardment in defiance of the order to surrender. Ingram can't afford to be taken because only he knows that Cryptographer Walter Radtke is actually an Axis spy who's learned of Nimitz's trap and intends to pass the information on to Lt. Kiyoshi Tuga as soon as he can find his way to an unattended radio. Casting off from Corregidor in pursuit of Radtke against a frightful background of din and death, Ingram steams into nonstop actionand that's just the trouble with this sturdy, cluttered novel. Gobbell (The Brutus Lie, not reviewed) wants to paint the Pacific War in precise, unsparing strokes, making every shot resound while keeping his eye on Ingram's and Radtke's high- stakes game. But he's more successful at the first endeavor than the second, and less successful still at giving his heroic characters any depth or distinguishing features. The Axis rant and rape like the Yellow Peril in a propaganda short, and poor Ingram can't ``think of a worse combination than the hideous political systems [Radtke and Tuga] represented.'' Lacking Frederick Forsyth's alchemical ability to transform the minutiae of military intrigue into high-voltage suspense, Gobbell is left with a million dramatic details that never quite catch fire.
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-13108-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
None
This is a book which courts the dangers of two extremes. It can be taken not seriously enough or, more likely, critical climate considered, too seriously. Kesey's first novel is narrated by a half-Indian schizophrenic who has withdrawn completely by feigning deaf-muteness. It is set in a mental ward ruled by Big Nurse — a monumental matriarch who keeps her men in line by some highly original disciplinary measures: Nursey doesn't spank, but oh that electric shock treatment! Into the ward swaggers McMurphy, a lusty gambling man with white whales on his shorts and the psychology of unmarried nurses down to a science. He leads the men on to a series of major victories, including the substitution of recent issues of Nuggetand Playboyfor some dated McCall's. The fatuity of hospital utilitarianism, that alcohol-swathed brand of idiocy responsible for the custom of waking patients from a deep sleep in order to administer barbiturates, is countered by McMurphy's simple, articulate, logic. This is a thoroughly enthralling, brilliantly tempered novel, peopled by at least two unforgettable characters. (Big Nurse is custom tailored for a busty Eileen Heckert.) Though extension is possible, make no mistake about it; this is a ward and not a microcosm.
None NonePub Date: Feb. 1, 1962
ISBN: 0451163966
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1961
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
APPRECIATIONS
Clunky prose and long-winded dissertations on comparative religion can’t impede the breathless momentum of the Demon-Drop...
A convicted murderer who may be a latter-day Messiah wants to donate his heart to the sister of one of his victims, in Picoult’s frantic 15th (Nineteen Minutes, 2007, etc.).
Picoult specializes in hot-button issues. This latest blockbuster-to-be stars New Hampshire’s first death-row inmate in decades, Shay Bourne, a 33-year-old carpenter and drifter convicted of murdering the police officer husband of his employer, June, and her seven-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. Eleven years later Shay is still awaiting execution by lethal injection. Suddenly, miracles start to happen around Shay—cell-block tap water turns to wine, an AIDS-stricken fellow inmate is cured, a pet bird and then a guard are resurrected from the dead. Shay’s spiritual adviser, Father Michael, is beginning to believe that Shay is a reincarnation of Christ, particularly when the uneducated man starts quoting key phrases from the Gnostic gospels. Michael hasn’t told Shay that he served on the jury that condemned him to death. June’s daughter Claire, in dire need of a heart transplant, is slowly dying. When Shay, obeying the Gnostic prescription to “bring forth what is within you,” offers, through his attorney, ACLU activist Maggie, to donate his heart, June is at first repelled. Practical obstacles also arise: A viable heart cannot be harvested from a lethally injected donor. So Maggie sues in Federal Court to require the state to hang Shay instead, on the grounds that his intended gift is integral to his religious beliefs. Shay’s execution looms, and then Father Michael learns more troubling news: Shay, who, like Jesus, didn’t defend himself at trial, may be innocent.
Clunky prose and long-winded dissertations on comparative religion can’t impede the breathless momentum of the Demon-Drop plot.Pub Date: March 4, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7434-9674-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2008
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