by Michael D. Urban ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 13, 2011
Six boys embark on an adventure in the Panama jungle, encountering danger, death and loss in Urban’s debut novel. Several years later, they return as men to the scene of the grisly event that has bound them together for life.
In 1596, English adventurer Sir Francis Drake is buried at sea outside Portobelo Harbor, Panama, by his crew—but not before he buried a treasure of gold coins he’d stolen from the Spanish. Four hundred years later, a group of teen boys begin an adventurous hike along the original Camino Real in the Panama Canal Zone and discover the hidden treasure. They are led by their scoutmaster, hydrologist and explorer Robert Medvedic Sr., a World War II vet who is also rumored to have worked with the CIA. The diverse group includes an inept assistant scoutmaster and his marijuana-smoking son; a socially sensitive doctor’s son who is one of the few black American civilians living in the Zone; a high school football quarterback; a smart-mouthed troublemaker; a science-loving “geek”; the son of a career military officer who likes to bully others; and Zach Colt, a likable, level-headed boy who quickly becomes the leader when tragedy befalls the group. Although one might question how easily the boys’ parents release their progeny into the hazardous Panama jungle, Urban’s fast-paced adventure carries the story forward too fast to dwell on such matters. Time and again, the boys narrowly escape mishap, but just when it appears all will be well and the group will return home safely, disaster strikes again. Urban’s descriptions of jungle predators and the events that befall the adventurers are real and intense, indicating that much research was undertaken in the author’s story prep. However, some readers may be uncomfortable with the graphic details involved in the telling of events. The adventure continues in Part Two, as the now-adult scouts return to the site of their tragic boyhood experience to claim the treasure and close a grim chapter in their lives. Again, the tale gains momentum quickly, although at times a few of the men display adolescent behaviors that remind the reader a little too much of the boys they once were. A coming-of-age story and thrilling adventure rolled into one.
Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: IGTBA Enterprises
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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National Book Award Finalist
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
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