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
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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