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NIMITZ CLASS

When one of America's prized Nimitz Class carriers is lost with all hands and planes while on station in the Arabian Sea, Washington publicly accepts the catastrophe as a tragic mishap and secretly organizes an all-out hunt to bring those responsible to justice. In mid-2002, the USS Thomas Jefferson suddenly vanishes from the radar screens of the warships escorting it on a routine but dangerous patrol near the Persian Gulf. Aftershocks and radioactivity indicate that a nuclear blast has occurred. Appalled at the apparent vulnerability of the nation's most formidable weapon, the White House lets it be known that the giant vessel succumbed to an accidental detonation. Behind the scenes, however, the military/political complex mobilizes its intelligence-gathering resources to ascertain what really happened. Heading the probe is Lt. Cdr. Billy Baldridge, a world-class physicist whose brother was among the 6,000 to go down with the Jefferson. Proceeding from the premise that an inadvertent explosion was impossible, he soon determines that the carrier was atomized by a nuclear-tipped torpedo fired from a submarine. Although virtually all the world's undersea flotilla can be accounted for, the US President orders a clandestine assault on the three Kilo Class subs in drydock at Bandar Abbas, which Iran has acquired from the former USSR. In the meantime, Baldridge's to-the-ends-of-the-earth inquiries suggest the guilty party may be a matchless Israeli naval officer named Benjamin Adnam, now at the helm of a Russian sub once presumed lost in the Aegean. Adnam, it turns out, was an Iraqi plant on a doomsday mission on behalf of Saddam Hussein. While the West's operatives solve the basic puzzle, they must still deal with the intrepid Adnam and his crew, who remain at large with nuclear ordnance that threatens the mammoth flattops on which America and the world rely to keep the peace. A hell-and-high-water technothriller, and an impressive debut from British journalist Robinson. (First printing of 250,000; $325,000 ad/promo)

Pub Date: June 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-06-018755-7

Page Count: 432

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1997

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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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MAGIC HOUR

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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