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THE DISCIPLES

Name: THE DISCIPLES
Author: Joseph J. Andrew
ISBN: 0-671-79599-6

by Joseph J. Andrew ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 6, 1993

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An engrossing thriller—and first novel—that displays a firm grasp of conspiracy theory and a light touch in making its wickedly outrageous premise at least plausible. The tale is set in 1989—when cold war exigencies still preoccupied intelligence operatives throughout the world—and is narrated by T.C. Steele, a sardonically detached analyst in the upper echelons of the National Security Agency and a Yale alum who knows his way around the establishment. At the heart of the matter is Rebecca Townsend, a gorgeous NSA recruiter who, unbeknownst to her employer, is part of a Rothschild-like clan (the ``Disciples'') that, in the wake of WW II, fanned out from Germany to the four corners of the earth. While making their way in many lands, the 12 branches of the family covertly collected the deepest military/industrial secrets of the US, Soviet Union, and a host of other nations. Four decades on, the self-anointed apostles of a genuinely new world order are preparing to release the amassed information in order to stalemate not only the superpowers but also such traditional foes as Israel and the Arab Bloc. The plot thickens when Rebecca, who's lulled her government masters into a false sense of security, falls in love with seemingly innocent young architect Tommy Wood. Co-opted by the NSA (whose eavesdropping yields bits and pieces of the unfolding story), Wood does constant battle for his ladylove's kin; he's also at her side for a slam-bang climax when she bests the hired guns of a duplicitous villain in a mid-ocean shootout to transmit data that explains, among other things, why Moscow stood by when the Berlin Wall fell. Steele offers an appropriately donnish wrap-up—with a satisfying twist that ties all loose ends into a very neat package. An impressive debut—and an elegantly executed conceit.

Pub Date: July 6, 1993

ISBN: 0-671-79599-6

Page Count: 464

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

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Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.