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
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
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