A lengthy, often slow-moving tale from Linder (There Came a Proud Beggar, 1985)—one as concerned with the minutia of modern espionage as with its story of the arrest of a Naval Intelligence specialist acting as an Israeli spy, plus the subsequent efforts of a small band of US intelligence operatives to thwart a plan by the Mossad to rescue him. Readers who expect the traditional trappings of the spy thriller here will find those elements generally obscured by a steady recounting of interagency maneuvering and complex internecine squabbles. FBI Special Agent Matt Blake heads up the team trying to figure out why the Mossad would undertake the rescue of Martin Ellis against all odds. The task is as important as any he's ever undertaken, not least because it is his only hope for earning the promotion he needs to pay for his daughter's marriage. The personal side of things gets even more complicated when his younger daughter becomes romantically involved with the Assistant US Attorney helping Blake, Richard Halpern. Blake's efforts finally manage to pinpoint master spy Dr. Phillip Starfield and the deadly Ephraim Hirsh (who ``travels around the world...and kills people who hurt Jews'') as key players in the Israeli plot. The How and Why are less easily determined, however, especially since there are other betrayals and an unexpected hidden purpose behind all the maneuvering. Linder's style does have a certain charm, which manifests itself as the story unfolds, and the resolution of things is likely to surprise most readers. But at the same time this offers more detail and less action than many will expect or want.
Pub Date: June 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-679-40981-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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