Hoyt (Tyger! Tyger!, p. 160) shares his byline and series hero (James Burlane) with Congressman Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) in a gloriously over-the-top yarn about the mortal perils die-hard reactionaries with sociopolitical ambitions could pose to the US. Shortly after the turn of the 21st century, terrorists armed with automatic weapons gun down over a hundred lawmakers gathered for an important vote on the floor of the House. The evidence suggests that Latino druglords worried about decriminalization legislation are responsible for the Capitol Hill massacre, and there's enthusiasm for a punitive war against Colombia. But Thomas Erikson, the Republican whose successful 1996 campaign put him in the White House, isn't so sure. Concerned that American investigators may be pursuing fall guys, he calls in Burlane, a resourceful CIA dropout who does odd jobs for a varied clientele. With a carte blanche from Erikson (who faces tough reelection battles), the former spook springs a lissome computer hacker known as Cyberfox from the federal pen she's been languishing in. Burlane picks up a trail that leads him to Lamar Gene Cooper, a wealthy Perot-like industrialist and founder of the New American Party, and to a band of GOP extremists who hope to replace the incumbent Chief Executive with one of their own. With help from Cyberfox (who can follow laundered money to the ends of the earth), Burlane eventually realizes that both the affluent populist and the right- wing extremists have been using superpatriots with special-forces skills to do their dirty work. He sets loose several cats among these ideological pigeons, with only partially conclusive results. While virtually all the villains have paid with their lives at the close, the militia mastermind who may have played everyone for a fool remains at large. A tall millennial tale that could give Rep. Abercrombie's constituents some pause, albeit one that should prove right up the alley of Hoyt fans. (Author tour)
Pub Date: May 30, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-86166-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1996
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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