A somewhat unwieldy novel that nonetheless delivers fast-paced, dramatic action and engaging, lively characters.
Sparks fly when a rock star teams up with a brilliant attorney in this sprawling tale of sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll—and revenge.
It’s 1987, and British musician Colin Elliot has just re-emerged on the music scene, two years after a devastating car accident that killed Aurora, his heroin-addict wife, and left him close to death. Now, Colin’s determined to reignite his dormant career, but on his own terms. To that end, he enlists Laurel Chandler, a successful and beautiful attorney, as his official biographer, with the intent of publicly clearing the air regarding both the accident and his notorious late wife. Colin and Laurel’s relationship starts out icy, but before long they bond over similarities in their troubled pasts. The struggle to come to terms with a past that won’t stay buried is a recurrent theme in the book. It’s most clearly embodied by Hoop Jakeway, Aurora's unrequited high school suitor, who blames Colin for Aurora's untimely demise—he’s intent on avenging her death, no matter what it takes. The book opens with a gripping account of the fateful high-speed car chase across Michigan's remote Upper Peninsula, and then leaps forward two years to the sleazy drug dealers, scheming lawyers, put-upon managers and vulturelike paparazzi who inhabit Colin’s world. Mayle capably evokes the milieu of the ’80s-era rock star, though the book suffers from an overabundance of minor characters and some heavy-handed exposition. However, music fans will appreciate the references to classic pop songs sprinkled throughout the novel, while Hoop, with his misguided quest for vengeance, proves himself to be a complicated, fully realized character. But the novel falters in portraying the romance between Colin and Laurel, which never quite comes to life. Finally, a less-than-satisfying conclusion resolves one of the book’s main conflicts but leaves the other to be sorted in the next volume of the series.
A somewhat unwieldy novel that nonetheless delivers fast-paced, dramatic action and engaging, lively characters.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1463557331
Page Count: 504
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The plot is absurd, of course, but the book is a definitive pleasure. Prepare to be absorbed—and in more ways than one.
Another Brown (Inferno, 2013, etc.) blockbuster, blending arcana, religion, and skulduggery—sound familiar?—with the latest headlines.
You just have to know that when the first character you meet in a Brown novel is a debonair tech mogul and the second a bony-fingered old bishop, you’ll end up with a clash of ideologies and worldviews. So it is. Edmond Kirsch, once a student of longtime Brown hero Robert Langdon, the Harvard symbologist–turned–action hero, has assembled a massive crowd, virtual and real, in Bilbao to announce he’s discovered something that’s destined to kill off religion and replace it with science. It would be ungallant to reveal just what the discovery is, but suffice it to say that the religious leaders of the world are in a tizzy about it, whereupon one shadowy Knights of Malta type takes it upon himself to put a bloody end to Kirsch’s nascent heresy. Ah, but what if Kirsch had concocted an AI agent so powerful that his own death was just an inconvenience? What if it was time for not just schism, but singularity? Digging into the mystery, Langdon finds a couple of new pals, one of them that computer avatar, and a whole pack of new enemies, who, not content just to keep Kirsch’s discovery under wraps, also frown on the thought that a great many people in the modern world, including some extremely prominent Spaniards, find fascism and Falangism passé and think the reigning liberal pope is a pretty good guy. Yes, Franco is still dead, as are Christopher Hitchens, Julian Jaynes, Jacques Derrida, William Blake, and other cultural figures Brown enlists along the way—and that’s just the beginning of the body count. The old ham-fisted Brown is here in full glory (“In that instant, Langdon realized that perhaps there was a macabre silver lining to Edmond’s horrific murder”; “The vivacious, strong-minded beauty had turned Julián’s world upside down”)—but, for all his defects as a stylist, it can’t be denied that he knows how to spin a yarn, and most satisfyingly.
The plot is absurd, of course, but the book is a definitive pleasure. Prepare to be absorbed—and in more ways than one.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-51423-1
Page Count: 461
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
Fast-paced, imaginative fun. May Kurt and crew survive, as there’s a good series to continue.
The latest maritime thriller in the NUMA series starring Kurt Austin (The Rising Sea, 2018, etc.)
In 1968, the French submarine Minerve sinks without a trace in the Mediterranean. In the present day, an oil rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing and badly injuring many workers. Enter Kurt Austin, head of Special Projects at the National Underwater Marine Agency. Kurt leads a team that assists in marine emergencies, so they respond to the Mayday call and quickly find a stream of underwater flame—escaping gas is burning in the water, down “as far as the eye could see.” It’s a fire that needs no oxygen, a phenomenon Kurt’s team has never seen. NUMA calls the disaster clear-cut sabotage, and Kurt’s assignment is to find the guilty party. Said party is Tessa Franco, CEO of Novum Industria, who is busily sabotaging oil production around the world. She wants to promote her new fuel cell to replace “this mad reliance on fossil fuels” and become even more stinking rich than she already is. She has “infected half the world’s major oil fields” by pumping oil-eating bacteria into them, rendering them useless. “She is the oil crisis,” Kurt tells the president. Kurt's and Tessa’s teams race to locate the Minerve, which may have critical genetic research Israel commissioned half a century ago. There are great action scenes underwater and on the surface, where Tessa’s seaplane, the Monarch, is almost as big as a 747. Rotten to the core, Tessa wants her lackeys to “get rid of Austin once and for all.” Her odds look mighty good considering the firepower she brings to bear.
Fast-paced, imaginative fun. May Kurt and crew survive, as there’s a good series to continue.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1902-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
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