An alluring and adventurous ride through a criminal underworld.
Fillmore’s debut memoir chronicles how he fell into business with international heroin smugglers.
The opening lines of this remembrance plunge readers into action at the Nigerian border as chaos ensues over a lost bag of heroin. The author then looks back on his first assignment for a smuggling ring, and he recalls the initial intoxication of joining a crowd of 20-something college grads, desperate to bust “out of the narrow confines of our lives” by smuggling heroin into the United States from Europe. However, Fillmore’s “beginner’s luck” quickly ended when heroin went missing and he was forced to swear his allegiance to Alhaji, a Nigerian drug boss. Over the course of the book, Fillmore gracefully articulates the illusory charm of crime, which kept him and his business partner, Claire, coming back to Alhaji and his trade: “We simply did not conceive of ourselves as criminals,” he confesses, revealing the callowness of youth. But when the author was arrested by Drug Enforcement Administration agents and sentenced to four years in a maximum-security prison, he finally had to reckon with the “indignity of renouncing my actions.” Fillmore’s journey is replete with incredible, cinematic visual details, as well as a motley crew of characters, such as “fishermen lacquered in blood and fish scales.” His narration shows impressive thoughtfulness and clarity, even as he relates his journey at a breakneck pace. However, he sometimes glosses over piquant details that might have made for an even more engaging story; for instance, readers learn very little about the days leading up to Fillmore’s first assignment, when he and his colleagues “drink and plot, immersing ourselves in the details, arrivals, departures, in order to distract ourselves from the larger meaning of our travels.”
An alluring and adventurous ride through a criminal underworld.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-578-40348-9
Page Count: 290
Publisher: iambic Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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