There's merry hell to pay when a high-level CIA plot to gather illegal intelligence at a conference on the global trade in endangered species comes undone—in a bizarre but lively sixth thriller from Goddard (Wildfire, 1994, etc.), currently the director of the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory . To the despair and frustration of agency officials, one of their prized assets has gone into business for himself. Known only as Digger, the rogue operative is greatly esteemed for his ability to break into almost any building or computer system. Unfortunately, though, Digger (whose sobriquet derives from his tunneling expertise) is also a sociopath who delights in killing pets and people while burgling upscale homes in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. Arrested for murdering a German Interpol officer and his family, Digger is sent to a mental institution for observation. In the course of the commitment proceedings, he becomes convinced that Henry Culver, the Fairfax County criminalist whose testimony has kept him in custody, did not play fair with the evidence. When CIA mercenaries spring Digger from the asylum, his twisted sense of equity sets him on a vendetta. Meantime, Culver's new boss, a bent cop named Theodore Gauss, has purloined Digger's PC, cracked its software codes, and assumed command of the housebreaking crew the artful dodger directed via computer. Then Digger begins taking revenge on those he believes have done him wrong. Despite leaving a bloody trail, the fugitive psycho keeps at bay both his erstwhile masters at the CIA and the local police force (confused by the unsuspected perfidy of Gauss). With an assist from Charles L'Que (a French colonel assigned to security duties at the wildlife conference), the cerebral Culver eventually tracks Digger to his lair in a subterranean cavern and arranges appropriate comeuppances for other villains of the piece. A wealth of violent action, outer-edge plotting, and authentic detail on what lab guys really look for at a crime scene.
Pub Date: May 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-85945-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
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
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
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.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
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