by Jonas Vesterberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 2013
A well-written yet off-base thriller that would benefit from more plot and less stereotyping.
In Vesterberg’s debut novel, an Army major in an undercover terrorist-targeting program has a change of heart about America’s role in the world.
Vesterberg skillfully portrays Maj. Bob Faller, who travels overseas to interview an informant but finds that the bloodied, dying man is Mahmoud, an old friend. In the tradition of political/military thrillers, Faller is hellbent on learning what went wrong with this “asset.” His investigation leads him to Florida to see billionaire Sheldon Orelson, a former strip-club owner who’s also an amateur astronomer. Orelson tells him about the Roche Limit, the moment one celestial body comes close enough to another to be torn apart by it, thus ceasing to exist independently. It’s a none-too-subtle analogy for “the powers that be.” Tension builds until Faller finds his boss’s body at their office in Virginia. Though it appears the obese boss choked on his KFC, Faller suspects a different kind of foul play and finds a memory card in the man’s throat. He grabs it and goes on the run. So is he a patriot or a traitor? No matter, for most readers will see him as a bigot. This modern-day Archie Bunker sees women as unfit for the military, blacks as perpetually aggrieved, Jews as Holocaust-obsessed and liberals as “graying hippies.” It’s no surprise Faller’s marriage is shaky or that he doesn’t have a good relationship with his daughter, who happens to run the Chicago campaign office of the “African Muslim Communist” running for president. Halfway through the book, the momentum sputters when a serious health challenge makes Faller re-examine his life, apparently forsaking some of his bigotry. Yet his change of heart doesn’t ring true, as he abandons lifelong beliefs, even voting for “the Communist.” Whatever his voting preferences, the social commentary distracts from an otherwise engrossing tale, especially when the racism goes off the rails: “With their ball caps turned sideways, the jungle bunnies jig towards their subsidized housing on the other side of the interstate. They look really excited—as if they were on their way to swing from Lady Bird’s chandeliers, stink up the Oval Office with drug-laced Black & Milds and stain James Madison’s chairs with their foul-smelling, greasy hair products.”
A well-written yet off-base thriller that would benefit from more plot and less stereotyping.Pub Date: June 13, 2013
ISBN: 978-0615801452
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Exilio Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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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