Arnote, an old paperback mystery hand, debuts in hardcover with a trashy and rather tedious tale of Hong Kong on the eve of its reversion to China. Luscious Lacy Locke, senior VP at a Wall Street investment bank where she specializes in Pacific Basin markets, decides to gauge for herself what risks (political or otherwise) might be involved in the Communist mainland's imminent takeover of the Crown Colony. Once she's in the bustling Far East city, Lacy (whose marriage to a philandering TV newscaster is near the breaking point) meets with Claude Van Hooten, an entrepreneurial Dutchman who, with more than a little help from his live-in lover Moia Hsu, has built a very successful fashion-apparel enterprise that could be taken public. The daughter of an influential government official, Beijing-born Moia has considerable clout with the Red regime, owing to her skills in economic development. She has at least one enemy as well, the unsavory Liu Wing (a general in the People's Liberation Army) who loved and lost her. From her base at the Mandarin Hotel, Lacy also renews acquaintances with Brandon Poole, a billionaire Brit whose fortune grew with Hong Kong's emergence as an Asian outpost of unfettered capitalism. In point of fact, she spends appreciably more time with Brandon on the social circuit than in taking care of her employer's business, and as the handsome hardbodies frolic together, the insanely jealous PLA commander takes it upon himself to firebomb one of Claude's factories. A take-charge kind of guy, Brandon dispatches the general and prevails upon Lacy (who gives her husband his walking papers via phone) to consider bearing him an heir, while Claude weds the pregnant Moia. At the close, all sail off aboard a comfortably appointed vessel from Brandon's fleet, hedging their bets on Hong Kong's uncertain future. Given the inane plotting and witless dialogue (``Good company and a fine breakfast have totally cured my jet lag''), many readers may ask: Where is James Clavell now that we need him?
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-86097-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.
Pub Date: June 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14059-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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