A swift, entertaining tale with plenty of series potential.
A California businesswoman trains to be a tough, capable bodyguard in Quigley’s (Armed & Female, 2010, etc.) action thriller.
Thirty-two-year-old Justine Baron becomes a multimillionaire after selling her cosmetics company. Unfortunately, her wealth also makes her a target—even in her Palo Alto home, where a home invader attacks her and her photographer boyfriend, Scott Reddington. Justine manages to call the police, but the assailant gets away. At the scene of the crime, Detective Lily Marshall suggests that Justine might have fared better if she’d had a gun in her house. Later, Justine allows Lily to teach her how to use a firearm. The detective then sends her student to her own teacher—an enigmatic, highly secretive man named Don, who used to work for a special ops unit and the CIA. Don agrees to train Justine, but in return, she’ll have to do three months of work as a bodyguard to his clients. Later, Justine’s first assignment is to protect movie star Alyssa Stewart. Meanwhile, Justine’s adoptive mother, Lise Baron, a fashion industry mogul, is determined to find the person who broke into Justine’s home. She enlists the help of Eniko and Iya, two Ukrainians who once worked for the Russian FSB agency, and who now work as dominatrices. At the same time, Justine’s best friend, award-winning costume designer Danisha Howard, is increasingly suspicious of her fiance, Alessandro Stellini, a Hollywood producer. Danisha and her hacker pal, Ajit Pandeek, investigate Alessandro and uncover some shady connections. Later, Justine, Don, Eniko, and Iya team up against dangerous criminal types. Quigley manages to pack an impressive amount of material into this novel, including intriguing, detailed backstories for multiple female characters. Although Justine is the clear protagonist, there are instances when other players steal the spotlight from her. Eniko and Iya’s traumatic, shared past is decidedly more harrowing than Justine’s home invasion, and Danisha’s present-day fear of her fiance’s illicit deeds effectively ratchets up the suspense. This refreshing story also offers intriguing contrasts; for example, the dominatrices’ desire to kill the home invader is set against Justine’s obvious reluctance to do so. Although Justine’s training is, perhaps, a little too quick to be believable—she’s field-ready in just a couple of months—it does keep the story’s pace brisk. The action scenes are truly exceptional; at one point, for instance, Justine deftly blocks an irate actress’s “outstretched claws, then foot-swept her to the ground, rolled her over, and took a large zip tie from inside her belt.” Quigley adds moments of subtle mystery, as when one of Justine’s allies is introduced as a disembodied voice over communication devices. There are moments of erotica, as well, as when Don gives Justine orgasm-inducing tantric massages. Although Justine unquestionably loves Scott, the author leaves the door open to address her romantic dilemma in a potential sequel. Some readers may be shocked by the narrative’s explicit sexual elements, but the violence is relatively muted by genre standards.
A swift, entertaining tale with plenty of series potential.Pub Date: May 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-578-21732-1
Page Count: 318
Publisher: Grove Isle Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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