First novel about an attempt by British Intelligence to bring down Colombian druglord Pablo Envigado by placing an agent among the upper-level ranks of the Medell°n cartel—an attempt that's tragically undermined by unwitting cross-plotting among Envigado's enemies. When romantic, guilt-ridden superspook David Jardine, whose platonic marriage is punctuated by intense, irregular adulteries, is ordered to choose a new agent to infiltrate Envigado's upstart drug ring, he prepares a list of candidates, then whittles it down to two: Scottish-Argentinean barrister Malcolm Strong and Special Forces Capt. Harry Ford—and finally, after chapters and chapters of training and indecision, decides to send Harry, at just about the same time he starts sleeping with Harry's wife Elizabeth. Meantime, in New York, Homicide Lt. Eddie Lucco finds his attempt to identify a teenage girl killed by bad drugs stymied by an unusually high mortality rate among possible informants who could explain her connection to Medell°n hanger-on Ricardo Santos. And in Dublin, rising judge Eugene Pearson, all but promised the Attorney General's slot after the next election, is blackmailed by Envigado strongman Luis Restrepo into laying an ongoing cocaine trail into Europe in return for a regular commission that Pearson's fellow-IRA higher-ups are desperate to get their hands on. It's obvious that Pearson's wayward daughter Siobhan is Lucco's Jane Doe, but Smith takes his sweet time stringing the three plots together, feverishly introducing supporting characters and spinning out subplots as Lucco warily agrees to become the DEA's inside man, and Pearson sets himself against his chums in the IRA, and Jardine finds himself falling hard for Elizabeth, and Harry, finally nestled securely in Envigado's bosom, realizes he liked taking $2 million for saving his boss's life by killing a former colleague. British TV writer Smith's debut is immensely promising in individual scenes and episodes—especially in Lucco's gripping, believably heroic story—but overslung, overinsistent, and finally anticlimactic in its so-what holocaust.
Pub Date: March 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-671-78464-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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