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TobaccoNet

From the The Jason Kraft Series series , Vol. 1

A fast-paced DEA tale with a social conscience that should have many readers looking forward to more of Jason Kraft.

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In this debut thriller launching a new series, an undercover drug enforcement agent becomes embroiled in shady dealings in the tobacco industry.

Pot is the new tobacco. Hardly anybody knows this better than the greedy folks at Connecticut’s Treadwell Farms, where efforts are secretly underway to somehow cash in on the hot ticket that is marijuana. Marco Pinto, a scientist at the farm, busily spends his waking hours manipulating a new strain of tobacco with THC, the compound in marijuana that delivers the high. Since tobacco farms are already outfitted to work with what was once a booming cash crop, having a similar product become the new darling will work in their favor. There’s only one slight problem: marijuana is still illegal in most of the country, and the Drug Enforcement Administration, in the form of Jason Kraft, must make sure this genetic hybrid doesn’t surface on the streets. Complicating Kraft’s mission is the gorgeous Alondra Espinoza, a Puerto Rican native who packs a mean punch under that Miss Congeniality exterior. Espinoza is an FBI agent assigned to the case by bosses convinced that the DEA is not doing its job. What follows is a cat-and-mouse chase between different characters with conflicting interests in a plot that is tightly paced, if occasionally confusing. Bombard reveals the unfair labor practices in Connecticut’s tobacco industry—operations with no unions, no health benefits, deficient working conditions, and poor pay but which remain legal. It’s difficult to reconcile the land of hedge fund managers, one of the richest states in the U.S., with this kind of inequity. Unfortunately, Kraft’s romantic relationship with the beautiful Espinoza becomes a distraction at times, especially since it stalls the story frequently. And the many twists and turns may confound inattentive readers. Nevertheless, there’s plenty of action and fun to keep devoted fans of the thriller/spy genre satisfied.

A fast-paced DEA tale with a social conscience that should have many readers looking forward to more of Jason Kraft.

Pub Date: July 13, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-5150-8064-0

Page Count: 352

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: May 24, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016

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A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.  

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

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JURASSIC PARK

Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.

Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990

ISBN: 0394588169

Page Count: 424

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990

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