Not an entirely successful mission, but one that may interest avid armchair warriors.
A fierce battle between Iranian mujahideen fighters and a U.S. military convoy sets the stage for Williams’ debut conspiracy thriller.
Steve Holmes is a former FBI agent and current executive for Kratos, a U.S. Department of Defense contractor named after the winged enforcer for the Greek god Zeus. After a firefight in Iran results in the deaths of 35 American soldiers on his watch, Holmes has questions: Where was the intel? Why didn’t they receive communications from anyone outside the convoy? He knows three things. First: “Our people died for no good reason today.” Second: “Something or someone caused that FUBAR mess.” And third: “I’ll find out who or what…if it’s the last thing I do.” Holmes’ investigation soon puts him at odds with his abusive, ethically challenged boss, who directs him to forge relationships with unreliable Middle Eastern partners, saying that “We can make billions.” But his main nemesis is Alex Shankle, a pro-war U.S. senator with an increasingly suspect agenda. Holmes finds an ally in FBI Special Agent Sherry Adkison, who’s every bit as stalwart as he is. They make a solid team, keeping their heads in a conspiracy plot that becomes increasingly unhinged. Williams, who has extensive experience working for military contractors, is on more solid ground writing about that industry’s workings. His profound respect for members of the military is palpable, as is his frustration with a system that sometimes fails to honor their hard work and sacrifice. At one point, for instance, he points out that injured and deceased contractors are denied the Purple Heart. A couple of key character arcs are anticlimactic, though, and Williams sometimes includes odd, gratuitous details (such as that Sen. Shankle enjoys “pancakes with real maple syrup and smoked sausage” during a meeting with his colleagues). The dialogue also tends toward B movie clichés (“The whole world will call me ‘Mr. President’ one day”).
Not an entirely successful mission, but one that may interest avid armchair warriors.Pub Date: May 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-42220-5
Page Count: 344
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2017
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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