A moving depiction of the human costs of political chaos.
In Sullivan’s historical thriller, a young man from Northern Ireland emerges from a catatonic state in Texas and finds that he’s an international fugitive.
In 1973,17-year-old Brendan Kinsella suddenly regains consciousness at his Aunt Mari’s house in Houston, Texas, far from his own home in Derry, Northern Ireland. His mother’s sister cautiously begins to reveal to him the shocking nature of his predicament. After he participated in a politically motivated bombing—he’s involved in the underground resistance against British rule—he was smuggled out of the country under an assumed name: Brendan McGabbhinn. Badly wounded, he slid into akinetic catatonia—a state in which his “mind had separated itself from this world, for a little while.” Now he struggles to remember details of his former life; he also resists doing so, however, mainly because his beloved girlfriend, Joanna, perished in the attack. At first, he’s elated to be free of “the horrors of Derry, and the hate and the pain and the anger and the suffering and the never-ending brutality, both small and large,” but he considers returning to his homeland after he finds out that his brother, Eamonn, has been arrested and that his mother is ill with cancer. Over the course of the novel, Sullivan deftly manages to present the protagonist as an ordinary teenager with prosaic, adolescent longings and shows how he’s been transformed by living in a grimly violent environment. The entire novel is written from Brendan’s first-person perspective, a narrative choice that allows readers to easily feel his emotional conflicts and agitations. The novel can be bewilderingly unclear at times, but such confusion artfully mirrors the protagonist’s own disorientation. Overall, it’s a subtly evocative tale with psychological nuance and historical verisimilitude.
A moving depiction of the human costs of political chaos.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 24, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.
Stephanie Plum’s 31st adventure shows that Trenton’s preeminent fugitive-apprehension agent still has plenty of tricks up her sleeve, and needs every one of them.
The current caseload for Stephanie and Lula—the ex-prostitute file clerk at her cousin Vincent Plum’s bail bonds company, who serves as her unflappable sidekick—begins with two “failures to appear.” Eugene Fleck is suspected of being Robin Hoodie, who robs from the rich and, yes, distributes the proceeds to the poor. Racketeer Bruno Jug, who’s missed his court date on charges of tax evasion, is also suspected of drugging and raping a 14-year-old. But neither of these fugitives can hold a candle to Zoran Djordjevic, aka Fang, a self-proclaimed vampire wanted in connection with the gruesome fate of his late wife and three other missing women. As usual, Stephanie’s personal life is just as helter-skelter as her professional life as a bounty hunter. She’s managed to get herself engaged both to Det. Joe Morelli, of the Trenton PD, and Ranger, a former Special Forces agent who runs a private security firm; she thinks she may be pregnant; and she’s willing to marry the father, whichever of her fiances that turns out to be. On top of it all, her nothingburger schoolmate Herbert Slovinski suddenly pops up at one of the funerals she ferries her Grandma Mazur to, hitting on her relentlessly and gilding his importunities by cleaning and painting her shabby apartment and laying new carpet. Luckily, Lula’s on hand to offer cupcakes that stave off the worst disasters, and whenever this hodgepodge threatens to slow down, another FTA appears, or fails to appear.
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781668003138
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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