WHIRLWIND

Name: WHIRLWIND
Author: Joseph R. Garber
ISBN: 0-06-059650-3

by Joseph R. Garber ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2004

Charlie amuses with his superlative craftiness—but that’s about it for originality. (N.B.: Don’t confuse this spy fiction...

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Run-of-the-mill escapism—fun but not distinguished—from third-timer Garber (Vertical Run, 1995, etc.).

“Whirlwind” is the code-name for a new device, supposedly the most fearsome and horrific since the atom bomb. When two generators on a secret base in New Mexico blow up, Russian spy Irina Kolodenkova falls into possession of a computer disc and a 70-pound block of Whirlwind that she intends to get to the Russian embassy in San Francisco for transportation to Moscow. Sam, the angry National Security Advisor who plans to be the next president, calls in grizzled widower Charlie McKenzie, a death-proof hero in his 50s who’s just finished a two-year jail term, having taken the fall for higher-ups, including Sam. Charlie had been doing dirty work (killings) for the CIA. As Sam explains to Charlie, the future of the West depends on recovering the disc and the block. Even more self-confident than James Bond, Charlie returns to duty—for $20 million—and sets off in pursuit of Irina. He quickly catches up with the gorgeous spy, who, like Charlie, is an all-purpose defensive being and supercapable. Enter Johan Schmidt, a supreme killer hired by Sam to take out Charlie once Charlie gets Whirlwind back from Irina. The long series of chases here involves Charlie’s outwitting the CEO of the California DefCon company that invented Whirlwind, his fighting off Schmidt while saving Irina, and teaming up with Irina for an exciting dash across a surreal desert landscape, along with firefights showing that Irina is as sure a shot as Charlie. Meanwhile, the Chinese have a hand in the game as well.

Charlie amuses with his superlative craftiness—but that’s about it for originality. (N.B.: Don’t confuse this spy fiction with the season’s other novel named Whirlwind, a bad-weather tale by Michael Grant Jaffe, coming from Norton in October.)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004

ISBN: 0-06-059650-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2004

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE LEGEND OF THE LADY SLIPPER

AN OJIBWE TALE

adapted by Lise Lunge-Larsen & Margi Preus ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1999

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Lunge-Larsen and Preus debut with this story of a flower that blooms for the first time to commemorate the uncommon courage of a girl who saves her people from illness. The girl, an Ojibwe of the northern woodlands, knows she must journey to the next village to get the healing herb, mash-ki- ki, for her people, who have all fallen ill. After lining her moccasins with rabbit fur, she braves a raging snowstorm and crosses a dark frozen lake to reach the village. Then, rather than wait for morning, she sets out for home while the villagers sleep. When she loses her moccasins in the deep snow, her bare feet are cut by icy shards, and bleed with every step until she reaches her home. The next spring beautiful lady slippers bloom from the place where her moccasins were lost, and from every spot her injured feet touched. Drawing on Ojibwe sources, the authors of this fluid retelling have peppered the tale with native words and have used traditional elements, e.g., giving voice to the forces of nature. The accompanying watercolors, with flowing lines, jewel tones, and decorative motifs, give stately credence to the story’s iconic aspects. (Picture book/folklore. 4-8)

Pub Date: March 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-395-90512-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SHOCK WAVE

by Clive Cussler ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 2, 1996

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Cussler's most adult, least comic-strip-y entry yet in the Dirk Pitt sea sagas. Gone is the outlandish plotting of Treasure (1988), when Dirk found Cleopatra's barge in Texas, and of Sahara (199), which unearthed Lincoln's body in a Confederate sub—buried in the desert sands. Now, in his 11th outing, Dirk Pitt and his National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) fight villainous megalomaniac Arthur Dorsett, head of Dorsett Consolidated Mining, which holds the world's wealthiest diamond-mine empire. Pitt and his team must fight as well Dorsett's three daughters, the coldly beauteous Amazonian Boudicca, whose giant strength dwarfs Dirk's; the elegant but heartless Deirdre; and the star-crossed zoologist Maeve, whose bastard twins are held captive by grandfather Arthur so that Maeve will infiltrate NUMA and report on its investigation of his holdings—even though Dirk recently saved Maeve and Deirdre's lives in the Antarctic. First, however, Cussler takes us back to 1856 and a typhoon-battered British clipper ship, the Gladiator, that sinks in uncharted seas off Australia; only eight survive, including Jess Dorsett "the highwayman," a dandyish-looking convict, who discovers raw diamonds when stranded on an uninhabited island. From this arises the Dorsett empire, bent on undermining the world market in diamonds by dumping a colossal backlog of stones and colored gems into its vast chain of jewelry stores and, with one blow, toppling De Beers and all rivals. Worse, Arthur Dorsett excavates by high-energy-pulsed ultrasound, and when ultrasound from all four of his island mines (one on Gladiator Island, near New Zealand, another by Easter Island, the last two in the North Pacific Ocean) happen to converge, a killer shock wave destroys all marine and human life for 30 kilometers around, and now threatens over a million people in Hawaii—unless Dirk Pitt's aging body can hold it back. Tireless mechanical nomenclature, but furious storytelling.