A thriller with an intriguing central idea that could have been more skillfully fleshed out.
While investigating a major earthquake in Iran, a U.S. Geological Survey seismologist and his graduate assistant learn of a terrorist plot to poison drinking water in this debut novel.
Orsini’s thriller jumps into the action quickly, as Dr. Roger Rogers, his assistant Teresa Marchetti, and Dr. Bjorn Arnarson, a Norwegian science attaché, are forced to make an emergency helicopter landing at a biological weapons installation in Iran. They’re quickly met by armed guards and charged with espionage. While awaiting trial in jail, Rogers is approached by Mustafa, a laboratory worker, who tells him of a plan to contaminate the water supplies of several U.S. cities with anthrax. Mustafa, a member of a group called Soldiers of Islam, helps Rogers and his companions effect a harrowing escape through Iran and Afghanistan. During their flight, Arnarson is killed, but Rogers and Marchetti get away. Meanwhile, back in Mountain View, California, a mysterious Middle Eastern man follows Rogers’ teenage daughter, Julie. Later, someone tries to kill Rogers by running him off the road in Norway, where he’s visiting to pay respects to Arnarson’s family. Soon, the seismologist and his team, with the aid of the Defense Intelligence Agency, return to Iran in an attempt to save the United States from imminent threat. At times, Orsini’s prose offers sharp descriptions: “The application of the brakes rocked the big plane slowly back and forth like a huge rocking chair.” More often, however, the book suffers from stilted dialogue that keeps readers from seeing the characters as realistic and sympathetic: “ ‘Hi, Pam,’ said Roger at curbside. ‘Gosh it’s good to see you again,’ he said while giving her a big hug. ‘Oh, meet my grad assistant, Teresa Marchetti.’ ” In addition, the story front-loads most of the action scenes, following them with a number of events that initially seem relevant but are never tied into the rest of the story. It all leads to an anticlimactic conclusion.
A thriller with an intriguing central idea that could have been more skillfully fleshed out.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-64151-218-3
Page Count: 214
Publisher: LitFire Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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