An engaging opus, packed with action and conspirators, that gains punch and steam after a sluggish start.
An array of players instigates a three-pronged terrorist attack in Puerto Rico in this debut thriller.
A mysterious man named San Miguel meets with accomplices regarding their plan to wreak havoc in Puerto Rico’s Old San Juan area by blowing up bridges and capturing hostages at a hotel, cruise ship, and the governor’s residence. The terrorists’ stated aim is independence for Puerto Rico, with a student group, Socialist militants, and consulting Venezuelan army specialists all part of the coalition. Yet San Miguel, whose nationality is unclear, also has a henchman wheel a “device” to a secret location within the city. The terrorist plot is executed successfully, forcing officials and everyday people to react. A key responder turns out to be Lucas Alfaro, who runs a jewelry shop in Old San Juan yet also has Army Ranger training. Rushing to the governor’s residence to rescue his godson, who’s visiting the leader’s young son, Lucas manages to disrupt the terrorists’ operations. His TV reporter sister Michelle plays a part as well, as does a professional male escort aboard the cruise ship. Working with these citizen helpers and trying to meet the terrorists’ demands for cash and the release of an imprisoned militant leader is a weary police superintendent, who’s also tracking a mole within his department. Before the novel’s end, there’s renewed patriotism and harmony in Puerto Rico, but then Lucas discovers, and must foil, San Miguel’s plans for that device. In this novel, Pabon creates a fun, San Juan–set pastiche of cinematic blockbusters such as Independence Day, Die Hard, Poseidon Adventure, Rambo, and, especially, given the story’s tense showdown, Speed. The narrative gets off to a slow start, burdened by having to introduce its overly extensive cross-section of characters and provide the flavor of its political backdrop. Somewhat fuzzy, especially to a non-native, is whether some political/historical elements are fictional or not. Still, once the plot gets rolling, the author effectively cross-cuts between his three theaters of war, providing a page-turning brew of humor, pathos, and suspense.
An engaging opus, packed with action and conspirators, that gains punch and steam after a sluggish start.Pub Date: April 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9965481-5-1
Page Count: 1190
Publisher: IPBooks
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
© Copyright 2025 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.
