A second novel that’s several cuts above the average thriller, largely because it keeps to a human level and oils its wheels with immensely amusing non sequiturs. Once again, Mills (Rising Phoenix,1997) focuses on a quasi-religious group as a basis for the story’s moral ambiguities. This time, it’s the Church of the Evolution, whose 11 million clean-cut members parallel Scientology’s in paying heavy dues to rise through stages and achieve jealously guarded top status as “clears.” The group in this case is led not by L. Ron Hubbard but by the much more brilliant and human 80-year-old Albert Kneiss. Like Scientology, the Church has its so-called enemies in Germany, but here this is only a publicity ploy to attract Americans devoted to religious freedom. Kneiss, however, the messenger of God who returns to Earth every 2,000 years, is dying—or rather ascending to God—and a replacement leader is needed. This turns out to be Kneiss’s long-hidden granddaughter Jennifer Davis, whose mother is dead but who has been adopted by secret Church members Eric and Patricia Davis. All along, the Church’s business and membership sides have been run by Sara Renslier, Mills’s charismatic villain, who now has Jennifer kidnaped and her “parents” killed before her eyes. Investigating is Mark Beamon, a loose cannon FBI agent who’s been given a post in Flagstaff to run. Overweight, overdrinking Beamon is no beauty but has a very heady IQ and the highest success rate in the Bureau for solving kidnapings. Now, though, he finds himself up against an organization with fantastic powers, with members (like the Mormons) everywhere—in Congress, the Bureau, the police. Soon, his credit cards are turned to zilch, his every move dogged, a painful rumor is spread that he’s a child molester, and news stories appear about his drinking. Even the Bureau’s ready to crush him. Mills shapes his stereotypes with human clay, and excels at one-liners that quickly draw a reader into his spirited storytelling.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-06-101250-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1998
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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