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WINDOW ABOVE THE PORCH

An astute anatomy of war-torn Iraq that’s undermined by overblown prose.

In this debut thriller, an insurgent conspiring against American forces in Iraq resorts to subterfuge to survive. 

A Filipino man known as Angel lives in Baghdad, where he’s part of an insurgency against the American occupation following 9/11. His superiors give him a suicidal mission to smuggle an explosive device into the heavily fortified Green Zone. Angel doesn’t want to die, but he can’t refuse his orders. Instead, he decides to plant the bomb without making it operational. He knows that the explosive will be discovered, which will satisfy his superiors that he did as he was told, and he doubts that they’ll blame him too much for technical incompetence. But after he plants the bomb, one of his cohorts accidentally fires a gun, drawing the attention of American soldiers. He and two members of his team take refuge in a building that’s soon surrounded by troops; it turns out that the building is controlled by another insurgent group, led by Ali Qasem, a brutal killer—and that they have American hostages. Author Costanzi ingeniously chronicles Angel’s craftiness he tries to convince Qasem that he’s his superior; Angel manages to pass off his friends as captured infidels, and he’s prepared to present himself to American forces as a hostage when they inevitably come powering through. Along the way, the author intelligently portrays the moral chaos of war, not just from Angel’s perspective, but also from that of the American military, and of the Iraqi soldiers that it trains. For instance, Chief Ra’ad Farouq, a high-ranking Iraqi military leader, is charged with rescuing the hostages on orders from American officers whom he loathes. However, although the prose reaches for poetical heights, its style is consistently overwrought: “Peril’s tangy taste watered his mouth. The aluminum his fingers were locked onto caressed his palms. These sensations shot bone tightening charges through heightened biology.”

An astute anatomy of war-torn Iraq that’s undermined by overblown prose.

Pub Date: April 4, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-79601-923-0

Page Count: 250

Publisher: XlibrisUS

Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2019

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MAGIC HOUR

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

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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

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