Stark and somber, like the protagonist’s profession, but with a brooding ambience that will leave an imprint in readers’...
In Peterson’s debut thriller, a contract killer’s latest assignment puts him in danger and leaves him torn between revenge and protecting a woman he’s only just met.
A recent hit unsettles an unnamed former military sniper now working as an assassin for hire. Crime boss Luigi Baresi, before dying, warns the killer that rival gangster Vincenzo Varetti’s nefarious deeds involve not drugs or guns—but people. The killer’s newest contract is a mission to rescue Baresi’s son, Valentino, whom Varetti has prisoner, but the mobster, along with Dr. Charles Ward, is doing far worse things than holding someone captive. The assassin narrowly escapes Varetti and Ward, and he must decide if he seeks vengeance or a way to stop Valentino from administering his own retribution by targeting Ward’s daughter, the “beautiful” Dr. Jessica Ward. It may not be easy for readers to sympathize with a seemingly emotionless protagonist of unknown origin and name. He’s an orphan who knows nothing of his parents and lives in Hillbay (where most of the action takes place), a city in an unspecified country. But even cold and detached, he’s the least of the book’s evils. Varetti and Ward are plotting an elaborate chemical attack, and when the killer takes down a would-be mugger, it’s passersby who are bloodthirsty, demanding that he stab the thug. The story is notably dark, as the killer’s paranoia—he may have been betrayed by George, a contact he uses for intel, or his handler Lloyd—overwhelms the book. There are also a few cringe-inducing moments, including grisly scenes involving the gangster-doctor duo. The author, however, allows for subtle humor to lighten a primarily cheerless plot, having fun with the protagonist’s many aliases. The assassin’s oscillating distrust carries all the way until an ending that most definitely kills.
Stark and somber, like the protagonist’s profession, but with a brooding ambience that will leave an imprint in readers’ minds.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-0992438104
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Buster Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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