Another impeccably crafted installment that will satisfy fans.
When a CIA operator’s assignment puts her life in danger, a Green Beret may be her only hope for survival in the third book in Grant’s (Catalyst, 2017, etc.) Flashpoint series.
Savannah “Savvy” James is working with the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Command at Camp Citron in Djibouti in Africa, but members of the team, especially Sgt. 1st Class Cassius Callahan, are suspicious of the spy’s activities. Green Beret Callahan, however, is exactly the partner she needs for her latest op. Jean Paul Lubanga, a government minister in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is planning a coup. Callahan, with his fluency in French and Lingala, can help her make the contacts she needs to get close to Lubanga. Callahan is attracted to James, although he doesn’t fully trust her, and he agrees to the assignment. Posing as a wealthy businessman and his mistress, Callahan and James gain an invitation to a party hosted by a Russian oligarch. Lubanga, who never travels anywhere without his laptop, is the oligarch’s guest, and James takes the opportunity to access the minister’s computer files. When she reads them, she’s shocked to discover that her mission has been compromised. And when she and Callahan fall in love, the stakes couldn’t be any higher. Grant expertly braids together action and romance in a propulsive, page-turning suspense thriller. James and Callahan, first introduced as secondary characters in 2017’s Tinderbox, are dynamic, multilayered heroes here. Grant laid the foundation for their relationship in the two previous books, and this installment deepens their attraction in scenes that underscore the erotic tension between them, despite Callahan’s initial mistrust. Grant also explores James’ background in detail, revealing her true identity and a vicious assault in her past at the hands of her trainer at the CIA. The intricate, tightly plotted story takes James and Callahan deep into the Congo as they pursue a dictator and the person responsible for blowing James’ cover. Grant deftly connects the central narrative with characters and events from previous installments while keeping the narrative lively and fast-paced.
Another impeccably crafted installment that will satisfy fans.Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-944571-15-3
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Janus Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
