In his fourth literary tour of duty, submariner Michael (Patch) Pacino (now a two-star admiral) matches wits and superweapons with Japan's underseas forces: a stunningly effective technopolitical thriller from DiMercurio (Phoenix Sub Zero, 1994, etc.) In the near postmillennial future, an impoverished but well- armed Japan (which has been shut out of consumer markets worldwide due to unfair trade practices) is panicked into a preemptive strike against Manchuria, a new state that emerged following the breakup of mainland China and the USSR. The sneak attack angers America, which (under the leadership of its first woman president) decides to deny the home islands access to the foreign oil and raw materials that sustain them. Tokyo soon dispatches a squadron of computer-controlled U-boats to deal with the blockade. American Navy subs sink these unmanned craft, though not before they send almost all of the US surface ships, including an aircraft carrier, to the bottom. The shocking losses mean that Patch and his overmatched flotilla are the only American forces left in the Pacific to maintain the commercial quarantine. Facing a tight deadline from the chief executive, who plans to seek a negotiated end to the undeclared war if there aren't immediate results against Japan's crew-run subs, the gutsy admiral calls in Piranha, a new attack vessel equipped with Vortex torpedoes (state-of-the-art missiles that vaporize their targets). Until Piranha reaches the operations area, however, Pacino must hold his own against superior foes from an underwater command post aboard the Barracuda. In a series of close, hair-raising encounters beneath the waves offshore Japan, Patch's deep-sea sailors turn the tide of battle, saving East and West from a particularly unfortunate repeat of military history. A dandy hell-and-high-water yarn, with characters of some complexity and depth, a plausible scenario for global calamity, and an author who knows his way around the silent service's advanced technology.
Pub Date: Feb. 20, 1996
ISBN: 1-55611-458-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995
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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