An intense political thriller that should attract House of Cards fans waiting for the next season.
In this tale of politics and betrayal, a Secret Service agent must do everything within his power to protect the president of the United States from forces that are conspiring to destroy him.
President Thomas Walters finds himself backed into a corner by an aggressive and ambitious U.S. senator from New Jersey, Tyler Rumson, who is armed with blackmail that would ruin the head of state’s life. So Walters decides to end it all, abruptly throwing Vice President David Kendall into the highest job in the land with the added responsibility of guiding a nation that is mourning a fallen leader. As his vice president, President Kendall chooses Rumson, unaware of the senator’s major role in his predecessor’s demise. Kendall also doesn’t know that Rumson is willing to do whatever it takes to push this final obstacle to the presidency out of his way. Meanwhile, Secret Service agent Matthew Richter is tortured by what he witnessed the day Walters died and can’t stop wondering if there was anything he could have done to save him. When Rumson and a few carefully chosen allies orchestrate a disaster designed to take President Kendall down, Richter finds himself with a second chance to save the commander in chief—but it will take all of his intelligence, bravery, and fortitude to survive the dangerous road ahead. Beyer packs his debut novel with just enough information about Washington, D.C., and its various institutions’ dueling agendas to make his wild tale feel grounded in reality without being weighed down by minutiae. Richter and Kendall are both noble, likable heroes, while Rumson is a deliciously evil villain in the mold of Frank Underwood of House of Cards. There is also a diverse cast of supporting characters, including two 20-something backpackers who find themselves tangled up in the fate of the president, that should keep the reader engaged in the human side of the story even as the plot gets dangerously close to flying off the rails. Richter is set to return in a second installment.
An intense political thriller that should attract House of Cards fans waiting for the next season.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9963857-0-1
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Old Stone Mill Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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