by Michael Edward Gaddis ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2013
A grandly staged but unfocused thriller.
Nuclear explosions in New York and Washington inspire a charismatic general to launch the 10th crusade against the Islamic world in this turbulent debut military thriller.
A U.S. ambassador learns that a massive nuclear terrorist attack was carried out with the assent and likely participation of Pakistani military leaders. In response, U.S. Army Gen. Michael Scofield leaks to the press his intention to attack the Saudi Arabian cities of Mecca and Jeddah with his “Templar Division.” The news inflames governments across the globe, just as Scofield had hoped. American hard-liners warn that an assault on Islam’s holiest sites with only 10,000 soldiers would be futile and argue instead for thermonuclear obliteration of the Arab world. Progressive politicians, meanwhile, want the rogue general reined in until governors and surviving congressmen appoint a new president of the United States. What neither side knows is that Scofield has an arsenal of incredible nanotechnologies which, when deployed, will render his troops, ships and planes all but invincible—and invisible. But why would Scofield, who’s known as much for his cruelty as for his 27 Purple Hearts, want to avoid using nukes? The ostensible reason is that he wants to avoid “complaints from [the] neighbors”—countries downwind from the fallout. But the real driver appears to be his religious zealotry, which is fostered, at least in part, by his profound visions; in one, for example, the Archangel Michael warns Scofield—known as the “Lion of Afghanistan”—that the man who “calls forth [the] conflagration” is orchestrating actions that will cause the general to be “a destroyer of nations.” (At another point, Scofield says that while Christ preached love, Islam preaches world domination.) However, Gaddis gives Scofield too many needless disquisitions about God, and readers may find these digressions, as well as the relentless technobabble involving nanotechnology, distracting. These side trips, which also include a confusing political subplot, deflate the tension in what might have been a gripping tale. Nevertheless, the story’s forceful denouement of desperate warfare, and Scofield’s final engagement, fully justifies the book’s title.
A grandly staged but unfocused thriller.Pub Date: March 21, 2013
ISBN: 978-0988579019
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Gaddis Laboratories, LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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