by Orrin Lippoff Mladen Solar ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 29, 2011
The authors find emotional gravity in a fathomable medical nightmare, turning their expertise into a clever debut novel.
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Drs. Lippoff and Solar channel Michael Crichton with their debut medical thriller, a cautionary tale that spins a terrifying what-if scenario from the recent international concerns about the next supervirus.
What happens when pharmaceutical profits become more important than potential risk? Lippoff and Solar ask that question, envisioning the greatest health crisis since the Black Death. After being pushed out of his research position at a company called Novilis, Dr. Preston McBride heads back to hands-on work in a clinic, just as the flu vaccine he was hesitantly working on is being issued to the public. While Americans are heaving a sigh of relief that the dangerous Rohn Flu has been cured, a much-worse aftershock appears when all the dogs on Earth start dying. One by one, beloved pets, drug-sniffing canines and racing dogs all start dying in graphic, disturbing ways—bleeding from the inside-out as if they have Ebola. Preston puts the pieces together, quickly determining that the timing of the Rohn vaccine and the canine plague must be related, and races to find a cure before all of humanity disintegrates. While dog death may not seem like a harbinger of the apocalypse, the authors make the case that a disease that wipes out man’s best friend would devastate the human race in profound ways—from the rash of suicides caused by people losing their only companions to all-out riots spawned by waves of unending grief. Milking their terrifying concept, Lippoff and Solar make the horrifying genuine, most notably through a series of subplots and minichapters about the various impacts of the dog plague. The biggest misstep is that their novel runs close to 500 pages, and would have been greatly improved by a tighter pace. Potential tension is lost through a bit too much repetition as the plague worsens, but this thriller will still resonate for dog lovers and others.
The authors find emotional gravity in a fathomable medical nightmare, turning their expertise into a clever debut novel.Pub Date: May 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-0615384047
Page Count: 467
Publisher: Unconditional Loss
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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