Strong female characters and social issues augment this medical thriller.
An ER doc seeks a cure for a virus seemingly targeting African-Americans, which puts her and her infant daughter at risk in Crickard’s (Another Five Patients, 2018, etc.) thriller.
Dr. Sara Sullivan is understandably worried about a rapidly spreading viral illness. The majority of those infected by the virus, called Labrador, have been in D.C., where Sara lives and works. Over 90 percent of African-Americans infected have died, and Sara, who’s biracial (her estranged father was black), and her baby daughter, Elyse, are in danger. After Sara treats patients possibly suffering from Labrador at George Washington University Hospital, the Department of Health forces her into a “voluntary quarantine,” though she’s asymptomatic. Sara believes there’s a cure, which she’s determined to find, especially when it’s clear millions may soon be infected, including Elyse, who’s showing signs of the illness. In fact, someone, rather suspiciously, has had a Labrador vaccine in development for years, well before most Americans had even heard of the virus. Meanwhile, racial tensions in the States are rising: Blacks think whites are getting preferential medical treatment, while whites assume the disease originated in Africa. Sara’s hunt for a cure ultimately exposes a sinister coverup that entails sabotage, kidnapping, and murder. While Crickard adeptly delivers thriller components (Sara dodges authorities after she escapes quarantine), she also shrewdly addresses serious issues such as racism and sexism. For example, Sara is a resilient protagonist who has endured racist comments all her life and encounters numerous patronizing men throughout the story. Even when her cop fiance (and Elyse’s dad), Marty Thompson, uses a pet name, “sweetie,” it’s somewhat condescending. While other similarly arrogant male characters are interchangeable, the women, in contrast, are memorable. For example, graduate research student Veronica Laughlin fearlessly says to a police officer, “Didn’t your mama teach you it’s not polite to point?” The author retains an energetic plot with Sara on the lam and provides a surprise or two as villains and motives come to light.
Strong female characters and social issues augment this medical thriller.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9992059-2-1
Page Count: 346
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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