A daring, refreshingly original drama.
A man irrationally prepares for some unforeseeable catastrophe and, all of a sudden, that disaster arrives.
Jacob Morais is a self-described “normal kind of guy,” a successful management consultant in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But after a “dangerous buffoon takes over the White House,” he becomes obsessed with preparing for an imminent emergency, though it’s never clear what kind he envisions. He stockpiles supplies in his basement, buys a gun, and establishes a new identity, a manic process humorously described by Shapiro (Portrait of Ignatius Jones, 2014, etc.). He inherits a building in Montreal from his grandfather, and he puts the real estate under his alias and makes it the centerpiece of his “Plan B,” a strategy he devises should parlous circumstances demand it. He becomes so attached to his plan, he allows it to undermine his romance with Annie Kane, a fine arts professor. Jacob is hired to join Dazzle, a “hot start-up,” by the company’s new CEO, Sophie Bronstein, an old high school friend, who is coincidentally friends with Annie. The company is riven by intramural dispute, mostly stirred by the brashly disagreeable Viktor Rost, its chief financial officer. To make matters worse, Viktor turns out to represent the interests of a dangerous criminal organization using Dazzle as a money laundering operation. Jacob finds himself the rope in a tug of war between the Russian-Ukrainian mob and FBI agents who may be working for them. Jacob decides to flee Massachusetts, an intention made possible by his now apparently vindicated Plan B. The plot is ingeniously constructed—Shapiro masterfully blurs the line that distinguishes reasonably wary preparation and the intemperate paranoia of a “survivalist.” Furthermore, the story’s taut suspense is tantalizingly immersive—the plot’s unpredictability grips the reader. Problematically, Jacob remains a touch inscrutable. It’s never entirely clear what truly is the basis of his troubled fear in the first place. Nevertheless, this is a riveting exploration of life’s uncertainty and the resourcefulness it can demand.
A daring, refreshingly original drama.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9839244-6-3
Page Count: 241
Publisher: PenLane Press
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2019
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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