An expertly crafted thriller that depicts personal drama amid an international scope, with intense action and relentless...
Frank O’Brien seems to have it all—a beautiful wife, a new baby and a rewarding job doing counter-terrorism work for the U.S. government—but when a plane carrying his wife crashes in South America, he’s forced into a dark underworld where the drug trade lords over all.
A follow-up to Wulff’s debut novel, Tropic of Darkness (2012), which also follows the exploits of Frank O’Brien, this sequel peppers in synopsis where needed and lures in new readers with immediate action. The opening chapter reveals a devastating plane crash and the supposed death of Esmeralda O’Brien. However, the plot shifts to the perspective of a survivor whom readers will be able to guess is Esmeralda, even if memory loss has made her unable to recognize herself. Beyond this narrative maneuver, the book is filled with massive plot twists; even the cleverest readers won’t be able to keep up with the ceaseless action. The rapid pacing helps intensify the sense of urgency the characters feel as they’re plunged into a world where the drug trade is more important than family, love or even life itself. Explosions, double-crosses and lethal alliances burst off the page with relentless intensity. But the narrative sometimes falters when it filters information through multiple perspectives, resulting in unnecessary repetition. Instead of allowing readers to process the information, or relating it through action, too much time is spent with characters merely talking about the titular Umber Cube, what it does and how bad it is. Events in the story already show the horrific consequences of the drug trade and how the Umber Cube substance has the potential to destroy thousands of lives, so when characters take significant amounts of time to reiterate what we already know, it seems superfluous. Still, it’s a relatively minor issue, and the rest of the story relates an intriguing depiction of a vast, multinational drug conspiracy with deeply personal fallout.
An expertly crafted thriller that depicts personal drama amid an international scope, with intense action and relentless pacing.Pub Date: March 26, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475104028
Page Count: 382
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.
A slim volume of largely gay-themed writings with pessimistic overtones.
Poe (Simple Simon, 2013, etc.) divides this collection of six short stories and 34 poems into five sections: “Art,” “Death,” “Relationship,” “Being,” and “Reflection.” Significantly, a figurative death at the age of 7 appears in two different poems, in which the author uses the phrase “a pretended life” to refer to the idea of hiding one’s true nature and performing socially enforced gender roles. This is a well-worn trope, but it will be powerful and resonant for many who have struggled with a stigmatized identity. In a similar vein, “Imaginary Tom” presents the remnants of a faded relationship: “Now we are imaginary friends, different in each other’s thoughts, / I the burden you seek to discard, / you the lover I created from the mist of longing.” Once in a while, short story passages practically leap off of the page, such as this evocative description of a seedy establishment in Lincoln, Nebraska: “It was a dimly lit bar that smelled of rodent piss, with barstools that danced on uneven legs and made the patrons wonder if they were drunker than they thought.” In “Valéry’s Ride,” Poe examines the familial duties that often fall to unmarried and childless people, keeping them from forming meaningful bonds with others. In this story, after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hits Louisiana, Valéry’s extended family needs him more than ever; readers will likely root for the gay protagonist as he makes the difficult decision to strike out on his own. Not all of Poe’s main characters are gay; the heterosexual title character in “Mrs. Calumet’s Workspace,” for instance, pursues employment in order to escape the confines of her home and a passionless marriage. Working as a bookkeeper, she attempts to carve out a space for herself, symbolized by changes in her work area. Still, this story echoes the recurring theme of lives unlived due to forces often beyond one’s control.
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5168-3693-2
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.
A collection speaks in part to the poet’s Mexican-American heritage.
In these multifaceted poems, Mexico-born, Houston-raised Salazar (Of Dreams and Thorns, 2017) explores general human themes like love and war in addition to specific experiences as a person of color. The book begins with a sensual meditation on desire, featuring luscious descriptions of a lover, from lips “moist like youth” to the body’s “softest velvet” slopes. The poems shift to odes to cultural icons like the Tejano star Selena and Mexican-German painter Frida Kahlo as well as occasion pieces honoring his brother’s 40th birthday and a friend’s mother’s memorial service. The author hits his stride when he delves into identity. In “I Am Not Brown,” he contemplates the societal implications of skin tone and his inability to fit into the rigid category of Caucasian or Latino. “For white and black and brown alike / Are slaves to history’s brush strokes,” he writes. “Grateful for the Work,” perhaps Salazar’s loveliest poem, catalogs the day of a laborer, starting with an early morning awakening and following him as he toils in 100-degree heat, enjoys tacos from his lunch pail, buys beverages from a child’s lemonade stand, and returns home to an equally hard-working wife. The author then makes an abrupt turn toward Syria in a series of poems that condemn that country’s president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad. They serve as a rallying cry for Syrians and grieve for the murdered masses. Salazar’s closing poem, “Sons of Bitches,” is a clunky rant about a 20-year-old immigrant shot in the head by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent. The gratuitous violence and political theologizing are ill at ease with the intimate, personal experiences that preceded them, such as the fablelike “A Mexican is Made of This,” in which Salazar beautifully describes the “rainbows, bronze, backbone, butterflies” that his people embody.
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9991496-3-8
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Bronze Diamond Productions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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