Nick is an action fan’s dream, with the smarts and charm of an exemplary character who warrants a third installment of the...
A forensics accountant and former fed looking into the death of an FBI pal may have exposed an imminent terrorist attack in the second in Stam’s (The Trust Company, 2012) thriller series.
When venture fund Phoenix Holdings loses three employees, including undercover fed Chuck Engler, in an unexplained plane crash, the FBI calls in Nick Sanders as a consultant. Nick, who’d previously worked in the bureau’s financial crimes unit, joins his girlfriend, Special Agent Lisa Velasquez, in investigating his friend’s involvement in Phoenix. The two initially suspect that Chuck had been on the take, but the agent’s posthumous message for Nick—“follow the money”—points toward a broader conspiracy. Phoenix’s higher-ups dispatch men to follow Nick and Lisa, and soon the couple finds possible links between the company and a planned terrorist strike on the U.S. Despite the protagonist’s white-collar profession (Nick opens the story having just finished auditing a shipping company’s books), Stam’s novel has a staggering amount of action. Nick and Lisa, for one, wind up in the midst of multiple gunfights. Suspense-laden plot points include a mysterious key Chuck leaves for Nick; baddies with the ability to sever communications (i.e., cellphones); and an unexpected ally for the investigating duo. The financial storyline sparks curiosity, especially narrator Nick’s thorough explanation of unfamiliar terms, like shorting stocks. It’s likewise refreshing that the nerdish Nick, an ex-Marine, is physically adept and funny (he left the Marines because his next promotion would make him Lt. Col. Sanders). It’s understandable that the final act focuses on deaths, near deaths, and dodging bullets—particularly with a potential bomb in the equation—but it’s unfortunate that it sidelines Nick’s brainy half. Stam drops in a few twists before the ending; some are predictable, others shocking, but none of them slows down the gleefully rapid pace.
Nick is an action fan’s dream, with the smarts and charm of an exemplary character who warrants a third installment of the series.Pub Date: July 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9848174-1-2
Page Count: 386
Publisher: Langford Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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