An audacious, entertaining fusion of Cold War espionage thriller and romance, this action-packed sequel to Bonner’s debut novel, Soleil Tangiere (2013), continues the adventures of Canadian heroine Tangiere and her Russian love interest, Max Stepanov.
Set largely in 1989 Switzerland, where Tangiere is running a holding company, the novel begins with her contemplating getting on with her life and dating again. Stepanov returned to the USSR months ago and inexplicably hasn’t contacted her since. But her problems become exponentially more complicated when her older sister, Camille, visits with her boyfriend, Kurt Ballas, who owns a small commodities trading firm in Chicago. After what was believed to be a failed assassination attempt on Ballas in the States, he is almost killed again on the streets of Zurich. While Tangiere tries to identify who is behind the attempted murders, Stepanov is being coerced by his morally bankrupt boss into smuggling millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds out of the USSR. Stepanov’s endgame, although inordinately dangerous, is to avoid being killed while fleeing the USSR and to somehow get back together with the love of his life. Along the way, as Tangiere and Stepanov attempt to reunite and rekindle their relationship, they battle ruthless smugglers, spies, assassins and jilted lovers. A minor but niggling flaw throughout is the author’s propensity to switch from third- to first-person narration, sometimes in the same sentence: “They had kissed long and hard, and then he got on the waiting jet, and it had roared down the runway and lifted off, heading to Moscow, and I couldn’t really look at it go….” Additionally, character development isn’t nearly as strong as that of the previous novel. Fortunately, the knotty storyline and adrenaline-fueled pacing all but make up for it.
A bombshell-laden storyline featuring a bombshell of a heroine whose over-the-top bravado makes Jack Reacher and Jason Bourne look like Boy Scouts.
Pub Date: July 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-0692224328
Page Count: 380
Publisher: Soleil, Too!
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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