Another superficial treatment of Washington as a sinkhole for careers and marriages. Meanwhile, the moral issue of...
Debut fiction, set in the near future, from Nye (The Paradox of American Power, 2002, etc.), Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of Defense: a bland mix of turf wars, marriage wars, and the threat of religious war.
At the start, protagonist Peter Cutler hears he’s been fired as Undersecretary for Security Affairs at State; this is also the story’s climax, so there’s no suspense about his destiny. Thereafter, the chronology is straightforward. We get a quick look at Peter’s childhood in Maine, then it’s on to grad school at Princeton, where Peter studies political science and makes a couple of enduring friendships: with Jim Childress, aspiring politician, and Ali Aziz, a Pakistani studying nuclear engineering. Peter will also fall in love with Alexa, a stunning blond who’s not looking to commit; power is her thing. So Peter marries another looker, Kate Ling Chen, who will work for the university press while he becomes a Princeton prof (his field is nuclear proliferation). Raising two kids, they’re a happy family—until Peter gets Potomac fever. By then, Jim is managing the presidential campaign of Senator Wayne Kent, charismatic westerner. Peter joins the effort without consulting Kate and, after Kent’s election, accepts that plum job at State. Meanwhile in Pakistan, where Ali is running a nuclear research lab, Musharaff has been ousted by another general with radical Islamist sympathies. In DC, Peter scores some victories in the furious bureaucratic infighting but allows himself to be seduced by Alexa, also a big-time Washington player. Personal and political crises erupt simultaneously, and glibly: Kate, tipped off to Peter’s adultery, insists on a temporary separation, while Pakistan decides to transfer nukes to Iran. A CIA covert operation to pre-empt the transfer goes awry, Ali is among the victims, and Peter is made the fall guy.
Another superficial treatment of Washington as a sinkhole for careers and marriages. Meanwhile, the moral issue of pre-emption is obscured by operational details.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58648-226-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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