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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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