A speedily paced actioner that keeps its heroes—and readers—on their toes.
Two FBI agents go undercover to infiltrate a group of domestic terrorists planning an attack on Washington, D.C., in Windsor’s debut thriller.
The California hijacking of a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives truck nearly ruins the undercover FBI operation of agents Harry Harper and Ellen King. The missing ATF vehicle, which was full of weapons, quickly becomes their top priority. Their boss, Jim Morton, gives them an assignment that calls on Ellen’s skills as a “computer wiz,” as a flood of internet bulletin-board posts seems to add up to a call to arms for antigovernment extremists. Then the FBI director is shot, and the deputy director is killed in a bombing. Meanwhile, hacker Jeff Barnett, when he’s not hiding his online activity from his parole officer, is trying to convince a weapons dealer, George Pilkin (aka “the Commander”), to partner with him to help bring the government down. Harry and Ellen, posing as father and daughter, manage to infiltrate the Commander’s group in Lake Tahoe, but rogues in the FBI threaten their investigation by launching an unsuccessful raid without warning. The Commander’s specific target isn’t initially clear, but the code name of the strike, “Torch Day,” suggests something explosive. Harry, however, has a more immediate concern when someone blows his cover. Windsor gets his novel off to a rollicking start as Ellen improvises to help undercover Harry deal with Vietnamese gangsters. The devoted partners’ relationship is always professional, without a hint of romance. There’s also plenty of dialogue, which helps to make the action scenes concise and efficient; the best of them feature Ellen, who can inflict significant damage with a flashlight. The solid, packed plot, in addition to the imminent attack, includes a villain who may recognize one of the undercover agents; a blackmail scheme; and potential trouble from Harry’s ex-boss, who swore vengeance after the agent reported his corruption. A few bad guys, particularly Barnett, are so well-developed that they’re almost as sympathetic as the protagonists.
A speedily paced actioner that keeps its heroes—and readers—on their toes.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9981310-2-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: CT Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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