An array of zestful characters rescues this adventure’s somewhat muddled plot.
A former Hollywood star gets caught up in drugs, terrorists, and international espionage in this globe-trotting novel.
It’s been years since Londoner Eddy Relish’s Hollywood career fizzled. Nowadays, he’s borrowing money from “Reverend” Bill Blake, a vicious man who repeatedly quotes the Bible and has an affinity for nail guns. When Eddy can’t repay a loan, Bill forces him to become a drug mule. But Chinese intelligence operative Cynthia Tzin comes to Eddy’s aid. She knows him from his days in the United States, where she’s nightclub-owning Madam Sin. Cynthia believes Eddy can be an asset in gathering intel for China. But Eddy’s earlier chance encounter with Islamic terrorist Abdul Madbul also puts him in the unique position of being the only person who can identify the evasive extremist. Cynthia will help Eddy reestablish himself in Hollywood, where he’ll essentially be bait to catch Madbul. Indeed, the terrorist knows Eddy can ID him and is therefore on the hunt. So, too, is Bill, as Eddy failed to transport the reverend’s heroin from Hong Kong. Even Eddy’s comeback is in danger: Producer Cy Sly, who played a part in crushing the actor’s career the first time, plans to do it again. Dalzell (Everything Hurts, 2014, etc.) and debut author Radley swiftly kick-start their novel, as Bill is threatening Eddy with his nail gun in little time. The plot eventually spins threads that feature numerous other characters from around the world. Bill, in particular, finds friends and foes among the Russians, the Japanese, and more. In fact, many of the supporting characters prove much more intriguing than the protagonist, including Cynthia, whose authority and prowess are never in question, and Eddy’s girlfriend, Sharon Constable, who runs for council in the couple’s London borough. Though the authors’ tight prose and abundant subplots keep the narrative moving at a steady clip, the story is occasionally perplexing. A surprise blood relation between two characters, for example, has no real bearing on the plot. And why Madbul still wants to eliminate Eddy after the terrorist’s sketch goes public remains unclear.
An array of zestful characters rescues this adventure’s somewhat muddled plot.Pub Date: April 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-72830-793-0
Page Count: 284
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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