An entertaining if over-the-top saga of demagoguery run amok.
A mild-mannered federal functionary battles a fascist takeover in this boisterous satirical thriller.
Chris Thompson, a low-level U.S. Customs official, is shocked when he’s summoned out of the blue to the White House, where the president, a nitwit who plays arcade games in the Oval Office, and the Cheney-esque chief of staff tell him the country is facing a stealth invasion of illegal immigrants from Mexico and Canada. Free-associative plot twists soon shove Chris out of a crashing airplane and into Emergence, a strange bunker compound located beneath a Nevada strip joint. There, he discovers a cult of young men who worship the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy as a prophet and believe they will enter a deathless utopia after completing their service in a torture- and murder-for-hire scheme. Chris escapes Emergence but finds that its xenophobic, anti-communist dogmas have taken over America and resulted in a dictatorship complete with loyalty oaths to the McCarthyite Big Mac Party. Lundy’s frenetic picaresque bundles Chris and his pickup team of oddball sidekicks—lady ninja, Cherokee warrior, horny computer geek—from sorority party to detention camp to helicopter gunship without worrying too much about plausibility or consistency of tone. Chris imagines himself a James Bond–ian action hero, but he’s more a Candide-like sad sack whose initiatives usually fizzle; he needs one deus ex machina after another to pluck him out of scrapes. Revolving around a cautionary tale about a luridly caricatured right-wing agenda and a creeping national-security state, the novel’s politics are a bit cartoonish, as the republic meekly submits to authoritarian rule just because a politician dictates it on TV. Still, Lundy is a talented writer who crafts vivid characters, keeps the overcomplicated story moving at a brisk pace and serves up vigorous prose with punchy dialogue. Fortunately, he supplies enough tongue-in-cheek farce to balance the ideological dudgeon.
An entertaining if over-the-top saga of demagoguery run amok.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1937110536
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Emerald Book Company
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
This well-crafted, entertaining read may inspire teenagers to learn more about the life and times of their grandparents.
In Sedwick’s novel, 14-year-old Andy revisits the frontier adventures of his grandfather, Myles.
Sedwick says she was inspired to write her first historical novel by her father’s stories about growing up during the Dust Bowl years. The chapters meander among the viewpoints of Andy, who’s living in Evanston, Ill., in the early 2000s; Myles, his grandfather, who’s growing up in the 1930s in Vona, Colo.; and Ro, the coyote adopted as an injured pup by Myles and his family. Generations apart, Andy and Myles share a shyness and lack of interest in school and a gift (or curse) for puns and corny jokes. Inspired by a bourbon box filled with sundry objects his grandfather gave him just before dying of heart failure, Andy sets out to discover more about Grandfather’s early days and to record his many stories. Myles, in the meantime, skips school, tries to keep himself and his coyote pup out of trouble, and (with his sister, Claire) bemoans their existence in a remote town that lacks running water, electricity and a movie theater. The descriptions animate the characters; for example, Myles’ neighbor Herbert is “a man as coarse as a cowhand and as dated as an iron plow, a man who was as squat and dirty as his own sugar beets, a man who stank of cow manure and kerosene.” But the tale goes overboard in its anthropomorphism of Ro, even for a book that would be best enjoyed by a young teen. Watching the neighbor’s dog, “Ro wondered if she ever slept, truly slept. He wondered if she ever played with the children, if she ever ran simply to feel the wind in her ears, if she ever flew in the back of the truck. He did not think so.” Andy ultimately takes the station wagon Myles left him, and he heads west to see if he can inhabit his grandfather’s tales.
This well-crafted, entertaining read may inspire teenagers to learn more about the life and times of their grandparents.Pub Date: March 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0615692616
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Ten Gallon Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A striking story that will leave readers looking around the corner in fear.
In this mystery, Shadow brings to life the fear of terrorism in a big city.
Jack Oldham, a soon-to-be ex-member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, scans the crowd on New Year’s Eve, weary from constant high alerts and threats that lead to nothing. During the festivities, his concerns change after a bomb scare over a bag that contains the belongings of a college student named Jessica. Jack’s worried she’s missing. Preoccupied by the bag and the missing girl, Jack searches for her throughout the city, sifting block by block through its history while trying to keep its citizens safe. The hunt turns out to be for naught: Jack tracks down Jessica’s mother and then Jessica, who is safe at home. But things don’t add up: Jessica wasn’t anywhere near the neighborhood where the bag was found on New Year’s Eve, and the photo on her ID isn’t hers. Jack realizes this isn’t about a missing person; it’s about the safety of the city he loves. The bag has something to do with a larger plot and the terrorists who, after the death of Osama bin Laden, are more ready than ever to strike another blow against America. Shadow has crafted an entertaining mystery that borrows from the best in mystery and noir, while adding a heavy dose of modern paranoia. Jack Oldham, the compelling detective, is riddled with doubts and scars, and rather than being a standard cardboard cutout, he feels vivid and believable as a protagonist. Shadow deftly evokes the constant high alert in a modern security state, as if there’s always conspiracy around the corner. His language can feel clunky at times, though, and he sometimes drops in eyebrow-raising sex metaphors, although they’re usually just spirited jolts in this thrilling lookout for the bad guys’ next move.
A striking story that will leave readers looking around the corner in fear.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9859688-0-9
Page Count: 332
Publisher: Blue City Media
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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