A tangled, ambitious geopolitics-as-family-romance debut thriller in the mold of Allan Folsom's bestselling The Day After Tomorrow (1994). Called home from years of self-imposed exile to the funeral of his father, formidable Israeli general-ambassador-defense secretary-professor Yosef Benami, his son Luke learns that he has to liquidate his father's estate and turn half of the proceeds over to his older brother Daniel, a deserter after the Yom Kippur War whom he's long thought dead. But Danni's not at his Paris addresslover Nicole Japrisot says he's been away for monthsand while Luke waits for Danni's return, having taken his place in Nicole's bed, someone breaks into her apartment and murders her. It must be Danni, Luke thinks, and in the immediate sequel kills a mystery man he can only assume is his elusive brother. But Natalie Hoestermann, the ObersturmbannfÅhrer's daughter who's been spying on him ever since coming to Paris (to find the man who poisoned her faith in her own father's heroic resistance to the Nazis), could tell him that the plot is infinitely more sinister and complex. Husbanding his tiny cast as carefully as a rosaryvirtually the only other character of importance is Peter Chevejon, Danni's partner in a years-long series of antiquities theftsGordon peels back layer after layer to reveal the tortured duplicity that's driven Danni for years and the agonized, treacherous sacrifice of his father that started the whole chain of deception and betrayal back in 1942. The result is a brilliantly conceived but slackly told story; the hero and heroine won't even meet until the epilogue. Because newcomer Gordon lacks Folsom's crude mastery of narrative drive, his own story is constantly outclassed by a series of essayistic digressions (many embedded in dialogue) on the morality of sacrifice. The characters, meanwhile, emerge from the creaky plot contrivances as if reflected in an endless hall of mirrors.
Pub Date: July 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-43704-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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