An often exhilarating tale featuring bizarre technology.
In Giebels’ (Tier Six, 2014, etc.) thriller, an agency that buys and sells abilities does nefarious deeds to ensure the secrecy of its business dealings.
The Davis Agency specializes in purchasing people’s abilities, extracting them and placing them into others at a substantial profit while keeping it all a secret from the world at large. More than two decades ago, it offered millions of dollars to college football star Salvatore Greco for his considerable quarterbacking abilities. With help from a Davis employee named Wagner, Salvatore managed to back out of the deal, which led to a gunfight and both men going into hiding. In the present day, a tech-company CEO becomes a musical sensation overnight; Salvatore, who’s now using the name “Mauro Giordano,” realizes that Davis is still active and decides that it’s time to take the agency down. Meanwhile, popular artist Thad Newcombe’s suicide shocks the world and results in unexpected repercussions for his family. Thad had made a deal with the Davis Agency but didn’t follow through; now, agency goons are tracking his grandson, Matthew, believing that he inherited Thad’s talent. Salvatore and Wagner pose as prospective buyers, while Matthew inches ever closer to danger. Giebel’s thriller offers an offbeat touch of sci-fi, concentrating on the real-world consequences of the talent-oriented tech. For example, Kelly Bailey, another character, sells his superior musicality to help his sickly mother, but he ultimately comes to regret his decision, and the buyer won’t willingly return what he paid for. The book’s plot revelations are slow but steady—the wealthy and highly intelligent Cassandra Marcot’s significance isn’t immediately clear, for instance—and the agency’s villainy is engaging. There are intermittent grammatical errors, though, as well as apparently inadvertent name changes (a character named “Newcombe” later becomes “Newton”). However, these are ultimately forgivable thanks to the plot’s consistent momentum and an ending that readers won’t soon forget.
An often exhilarating tale featuring bizarre technology.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-692-82991-2
Page Count: 250
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
