A well-paced, attention-grabbing mystery that explores universal health care.
A debut thriller shines a spotlight on the potential for abuse in a national health care system.
McCall’s book centers on two siblings. Gordon Sand is a missing-persons detective in the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department’s Second District. Ada Sand, his sister, is an information systems specialist at the Department of Health and Human Services, much like the author herself was. Ada’s star has been on the rise during the preparations for the national health system called Americare, a priority of the new U.S. president, Dale Durham. The siblings split their time between Washington and bucolic Dorsey, Pennsylvania, where their doctor brother, David, and his family settled, next door to the Benedicts, a German Baptist clan. But Gordon’s and Ada’s worlds are destined to collide. That’s because Americare favors the rich and powerful through its tier system. Even worse, Americare’s leaders contract with an ex-soldier to kidnap well-matched citizens for body parts in order to keep sick Tier 1 VIPs alive. Based on the techniques used by this “Taker,” Gordon sees connections among seemingly random abductions, although Ada and his partner, Scottie Davenport, are skeptical. Then the Taker targets a Sand family member. Will Gordon and company expose Americare’s secrets? Using the guise of a mystery, McCall asks hard questions about the specifics of a national health care plan. Will it be equally available to all citizens? Or will those who are considered to have contributed more to society gain priority access? The author examines the latter option by creating a nightmare scenario in which ordinary people are sacrificed to keep the mighty and their families alive. Those just plain folks also end up waiting long months for “elective” surgeries that could enhance their quality of life. McCall has created likable characters in the extended Sand family as well as a nasty group of conniving health care bureaucrats. Particularly intriguing are the Benedicts, who live a simple lifestyle much like the Amish. Ultimately, McCall’s novel is an enjoyable blend of thriller, character study, and think piece.
A well-paced, attention-grabbing mystery that explores universal health care.Pub Date: March 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9845589-4-0
Page Count: 296
Publisher: JJ Publishers
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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