Only experts will be able to keep in mind the differences between, say, an HIT helicopter and a HIND gunship, but so many...
Acronym-encrusted, jargon-heavy, military shoot-’em-up.
The appeal of Richard Marcinko’s Rogue Warrior autobiography, and subsequent Rogue Warrior novels (all written with Weisman), was that America’s fighters—like Marcinko—could grab the latest military hardware and win any fight, anywhere, anytime, and that the only real enemy they faced were incompetent bureaucrats who wouldn’t let our gung-ho guys (and gals) do their thing. Army Special Forces Major Mike Ritzik and the rest of the soldier-heroes Weisman introduces find more than enough reasons to share that frustration as they race to rescue a CIA team captured in the Chinese desert by Islamic Uzbeki separatist-terrorists who’ve stolen an old but lethal Chinese-made atom bomb. Fortunately, the straight-talking Secretary of Defense, Robert “Rocky” Rockman, as well as American President Pete Forrest, a pro-military Vietnam war veteran, put Ritzik’s mission on the front burner. America is about to sign a nuclear weapons reduction treaty with China, and the CIA team, posing as filmmakers, had been planting seismic listening devices to detect underground tests. Not only are the terrorists crazed (the leader kills one of the team on a caprice), but China has already dispatched soldiers to get its bomb back—and finding a covert CIA team along with the bad guys wouldn’t look good for the US. Ritzik assembles a crack team of Delta Force specialists with names like Rowdy and Ty but gets two extra passengers: beautiful but brainy Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy Tracy Wei-Liu, the only person nearby capable of disarming the bomb; and Michael “Mickey D” Dunne, a Special Operations Air Regiment (SOAR) helicopter pilot. Snatching the CIA team from the terrorists is almost routine, but then there are Chinese troops arriving in helicopters.
Only experts will be able to keep in mind the differences between, say, an HIT helicopter and a HIND gunship, but so many crackerjack good guys, stirring esprit de corps, and spectacular explosions make for a suspenseful war fantasy.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-052409-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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