Nance’s amiable cast is partly what makes his tenth outing (Turbulence, 2000, etc.) work so well.
Thoroughly entertaining thriller about secrets, lies (bureaucratic sort), and little guys beating the odds.
“I’m a minnow challenging sharks,” says fledgling lawyer Gracie O’Brien to her best friend April Rosen. Waiting inside a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C., is a whole school of sharks—legal, power-suited, supercilious—representing the US government’s defense against a plaintiff whose chances everyone (including Gracie) rates at slim to none. It all started innocently enough when Arlie Rosen, April’s dad, took off with his wife on a pleasure cruise in his beloved Grumman, which shortly thereafter crashed into the Gulf of Alaska. Plane demolished, humans—miraculously enough—only scratched though nevertheless, post-rescue, still floundering in a sea of troubles. Actually, fate’s fickle finger began jabbing at Arlie long before the plunge. Flash back to Operation Skyhook: a brilliantly conceived program calculated to help aircraft survive terrorist activity. Nothing could be more hush-hush, so when Arlie Rosen, fog-bound, sideswiped a jet smack in the middle of a test run, it was the wrong place at the wrong time writ large. But Arlie’s not alone in being out of the loop. The FAA, too, is flying blind, and soon enough a self-righteous, mean-spirited inspector turns up with a private agenda at cross purposes to Skyhook. Arlie’s pilot’s license is lifted—lighting fires under loving April and loyal Gracie—and suddenly it’s David vs. Goliath, the phrase “due process” much in the air. To the government, the transcendent issue is keeping Operation Skyhook under wraps. To Arlie, it’s his pilot’s license and his constitutional rights that matter most. Big Government, armed to the teeth with resources, glaring down at little Arlie—an unequal contest? Well, never underestimate the power of aroused minnows.
Nance’s amiable cast is partly what makes his tenth outing (Turbulence, 2000, etc.) work so well.Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-399-14980-5
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2003
Though the novel eventually begins to sag under the weight of all its plot elements, fans of the psychological thriller will...
A pathological liar, a woman in a coma, a childhood diary, an imaginary friend, an evil sister—this is an unreliable-narrator novel with all the options.
"A lot of people would think I have a dream job, but nightmares are dreams too." Was it only a week ago Amber Reynolds thought her job as an assistant radio presenter was a nightmare? Now it's Dec. 26 (or Boxing Day, because we're in England), and she's lying in a hospital bed seemingly in a coma, fully conscious but unable to speak or move. We won't learn what caused her condition until the end of the book, and the journey to that revelation will be complicated by many factors. One: She doesn't remember her accident. Two: As she confesses immediately, "Sometimes I lie." Three: It's a story so complicated that even after the truth is exposed, it will take a while to get it straight in your head. As Amber lies in bed recalling the events of the week that led to her accident, several other narrative threads kick up in parallel. In the present, she's visited in her hospital room by her husband, a novelist whose affections she has come to doubt. Also her sister, with whom she shares a dark secret, and a nasty ex-boyfriend whom she ran into in the street the week before. He works as a night porter at the hospital, giving him unfortunate access to her paralyzed but not insensate body. Interwoven with these sections are portions of a diary, recounting unhappy events that happened 25 years earlier from a 9-year-old child's point of view. Feeney has loaded her maiden effort with possibilities for twists and reveals—possibly more than strictly necessary—and they hit like a hailstorm in the last third of the book. Blackmail, forgery, secret video cameras, rape, poisoning, arson, and failing to put on a seat belt all play a role.
Though the novel eventually begins to sag under the weight of all its plot elements, fans of the psychological thriller will enjoy this ambitious debut.Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-14484-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
Ace symbologist Robert Langdon returns, and the world trembles. Perfect escapist reading for fans.
Brown’s (The Lost Symbol, 2009, etc.) latest, in which a very bad guy is convinced that there are entirely too many people roaming the surface of the planet, and, because he’s a fan of Dante and the Plague both, he’s set to unleash inferno upon the world.
Naturally enough, this being a Brown novel, someone is in possession of a piece of occult knowledge that will save the day—or not. The novel is populated with the usual elements in the form of secret, conspiratorial organizations and villains on the way to being supervillains, and readers of a literary bent may find the writing tortured: “This morning, as he stepped onto the private balcony of his yacht’s stateroom, the provost looked across the churning sea and tried to fend off the disquiet that had settled in his gut.” To his credit, Brown’s yarn is somewhat more tightly constructed than his earlier Langdon vehicles, though its best parts are either homages or borrowings; the punky chick assassin who threatens Langdon, for instance, seems to have wandered in from a Stieg Larsson set, while the car-chase-and-explosions stuff, to say nothing of Langdon’s amnesiac wanderings around the world, would seem to be a nod to Robert Ludlum. (Being chased by a drone is a nice touch, though.) If you want more of the great medieval poet Dante woven into a taut thriller, see Matthew Pearl’s The Dante Club.
Ace symbologist Robert Langdon returns, and the world trembles. Perfect escapist reading for fans.Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-385-53785-8
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
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