Amazing but true: the major upheavals in Soviet-American policy from the Cuban missile crisis to the abortive coup against Gorbachev were all sparked by a monstrous sibling rivalry between two half- brothers, raised half a world apart. The boys are both sons of Soviet-Jewish poet Tanya Gordon, doomed by her membership in an anti-fascist group and by Stalin's relentless anti-Semitism. To save the life of her son Alex, she abandons her condemned husband, poet Victor Wolf, and marries KGB Col. Boris Morozov, who has time to father another son, Dimitri, before Tanya and then Morozov himself are liquidated. Responding to Tanya's dying wish, Morozov sends Alex to Brooklyn to grow up with Tanya's sister Nina Kramer. After endless crosscutting between scenes from the boys' adolescence—Alex is tormented by kids who call his aunt a Red; Dimitri kills a bully who threatens to unmask him as a traitor's son; Alex enrolls in the Sovietology program at Brown; Dimitri trains for the KGB—the two are ready for their momentous collision: CIA agent Franco Grimaldi, eager to recruit Alex, allows Dimitri to find out where he is and lure him to Paris for a meeting; when Dimitri's recalled to Russia, Alex promptly takes his place with his lover Tatiana Romanov; Dimitri finds out and vows revenge; Grimaldi leaks the runaway lovers' location to Dimitri and stands back while Dimitri strangles Tatiana. There's lots more intrigue to come—in fact, ``Afghanistan, Poland, and Star Wars were for [Dimitri] nothing but pawns in...the deadly game he played against his brother''—as Alex and Dimitri keep looking for new ways to kill, maim, or annoy each other, leaving their messy footprints all over foreign policy until the final, ill-advised twist. Former Knesset member Ben-Zohar (The Deadly Document, 1980, etc.), who ought to know better, has written an entertaining, deliriously overscaled, deeply irresponsible spy-soaper. Ah, well, boys will be boys.
Pub Date: May 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-449-90511-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
© Copyright 2026 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.
