A slow burn, aided by remarkable characters and an impressive ending.
In Faria’s debut thriller, a forensic accountant’s audit of an Atlanta company eventually unearths a conspiracy.
Investment fund Blue Creek Capital hires Nick Neville to audit tech company Cogvolve. It’s been a year since Blue Creek sank $1 billion into the firm, which still hasn’t produced any promised prototypes of “home appliances that are connected and controlled by artificial intelligence.” Nick finds nothing illicit while crunching the numbers, but he does discover some strange goings-on in and around Cogvolve. For starters, its lead researcher, Frederico Lanza, has inexplicably gone missing—and he later turns up dead. Also, protestors are decrying the company’s work on artificial intelligence, fearing that it will result in self-replicating machines. As Nick looks into Lanza’s death, he teams up with an anti-AI activist called “BabyKitty” (his preferred name as a “furry”). Along with Liliana Hofstein, the daughter of Lanza’s former college roommate, Nick and BabyKitty try to access the researcher’s encrypted flash drive, which is filled with stolen—and possibly incriminating—Cogvolve info. This necessitates a trip to Germany, where they have precarious run-ins with local authorities, as well as with members of the Illuminati. It’s clear that the trio has stumbled upon something more dangerous than they could have possibly imagined. The pace of Faria’s narrative is unhurried at first, as it meticulously details Nick’s failed relationships, as well as his past audits of crooked companies. However, the story slowly introduces an engrossing conspiracy, including flashbacks with famed historical figures, such as Nikola Tesla and Leonardo da Vinci. The mystery is occasionally convoluted; even the brilliant Nick can’t manage to tie together all the discoveries that the group makes. But the ultimate reveal, which boasts more than one effective twist, is a worthy payoff. Moments of humor help to lighten the complex narrative, particularly from BabyKitty, an extraordinary character who uses numerous, sometimes-surprising pseudonyms.
A slow burn, aided by remarkable characters and an impressive ending.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-145756-743-8
Page Count: 253
Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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