An enjoyable novel based on a piece of recent economic history.
A fictional account of the Greek financial crisis.
In this novel, Myers (Betrayal in Europe, 2015) blends wholly made-up characters—financial wizards Jim Schiller, Jack Hawkins, and James Smith; behind-the-scenes fixer Sophie d’Auverne—with fictional versions of the European leaders who were in the headlines as Greece struggled to meet its financial obligations and maintain its place in the European Union in 2015. (Those officials include Angela Merkel, Christine Lagarde, Mario Draghi, and Alexis Tsipras.) Sophie jets from one financial capital to another helping to arrange a deal that will head off financial chaos, while her fiance, Jim, sets out on his own damage-control mission after realizing that his hedge fund has gotten involved in risky Greek investments. Jack and James decide to bring the monarchy back to Greece, regardless of the elected government’s preferences, and everyone is spying on everyone else, hoping for an edge. In the end, a deal is reached, the financiers continue to make money, and reporters continue to pay more attention to Yanis Varoufakis’ motorcycle than to his country’s financial policies. Sophie, the story’s core, is always ready with a snappy comeback (“That’s my helicopter. Yours is the little one out on the horizon”) or a politically astute move. Balancing her professional obligations with keeping her teenage daughter in line and living up to her aristocratic family’s standards, she always remains thoroughly French. The other characters are people who use terms like “Grexit” in casual conversation, and their stories will appeal to readers who are similarly devoted to the machinations that surround global finance. Those same readers, however, may find the repeated explanations of the novel’s real-life characters (“mentioning the powerful German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, the number-two politician in Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition government”; “referring to Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister with the rock star reputation”; “referring to Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund”) superfluous. Yet the novel is fast-paced, with an intriguing plot (even for those who already know the outcome), and Myers demonstrates that a financial story can be a thriller even without a single drawn gun or weapon of mass destruction.
An enjoyable novel based on a piece of recent economic history.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5193-5262-0
Page Count: 220
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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