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POWER CURVE

Name: POWER CURVE
Author: Jr. Herman
ISBN: 0-380-97320-0

by Jr. Herman ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1997

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Madeline O'Keith Turner faces a sea of troubles upon becoming the first woman President of the US, and her military aide Robert Bender struggles to guide her through them in a heady change-of- pace yarn from Herman (Iron Gate, 1996, etc.) When a death in the Oval Office puts Maddy Turner in the White House, the comely widow looks for support from Patrick Shaw (her snaky chief of staff) and the true-blue Bender (a three-star Air Force general who wants only to be back with the troops). As it happens, the former California legislator may need something very like divine intervention. Her predecessor secretly sold out Taiwan, and an emboldened Peoples Republic of China is on the move in Asia. Obstinately more concerned with domestic social programs and tax reform, Maddy dithers while Bender burns. Meantime, an unholy alliance of reactionary senators and cabinet members (abetted by the faithless Shaw) is plotting to destroy the Turner presidency. Once the PRC displays its nuclear capabilities with a blast on a deserted but disputed atoll, however, the rookie Chief Executive honors the threat with semi-decisive action. Making Bender her National Security Advisor, she dispatches him to negotiate with the Communist Chinese. Before a deal can be done, hard-liners vying for power in Beijing detain her envoy. At length, she orders a tit-for- tat detonation, which comes a cropper when the atomic warhead fails to explode. With the clock running out on both America's prestige and Bender's life expectancy, the US military scrambles to put another bomb on the showcase target (now occupied by PRC troops). Until the close, though, there's a world of doubt as to whether the bleeding-heart Commander in Chief will use deadly force against an obvious foe. A conventionally macho technothriller with a wicked twist—a female President whose shaky grasp on geopolitical reality drives the absorbing narrative in surprising ways. (First printing of 50,000)

Pub Date: May 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-380-97320-0

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

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THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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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.