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
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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