Bird-colonel Matt Pontowski (Dark Wing, 1994, etc.) takes his US Air Force Wing on a peacekeeping mission to South Africa, where aggressive white separatists may have made a go of cold fusion (giving them a nuclear capability): Herman's latest entry in a first-rate series of military/political thrillers. It's the near future, and the Afrikaner Resistance Movement has established a Boerstat in the Karoo (a mountainous wasteland north of Cape Town), where the insurgents have stockpiled an impressive arsenal of modern weaponry and (with the help of an Israeli scientist) come close to developing a hydrogen bomb in their remote redoubt (known as Iron Gate). Under the crafty leadership of mad, messianic Hans Beckmann, the breakaway state threatens the stability of South Africa's democratically elected and multiracial (albeit ineffectual) government. Aware of the dangers, America's President takes advantage of a Congressional recess to add Pontowski's aircraft (A-10 Warthogs and C-130 transports) to a UN force previously detailed to maintain order in the region's trouble spots. Bound by strict rules of engagement, however, the high-flying fighter pilot can't come to grips with a fanatic foe bent on achieving not only independence but also dominion. Nor, owing to budget constraints and partisan enmities, is he able to count on much home-front support. Pontowski and his immediate superior, the de Gaullelike commandant of a French Foreign Legion unit, nonetheless soldier on until the dissident homesteaders (backed by Middle European powers seeking a piece of the advanced-technology action) overplay their hand . . . . Vivid, violent scenes of aerial combat and plausible maneuvering behind the lines where geopolitical fates are determined: a notably exciting account of a low-intensity conflict that's uncomfortably credible on its own merits.
Pub Date: Jan. 22, 1996
ISBN: 0-684-81070-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1995
A somewhat puzzling book, but — all in all — it is good Hemingway, and a sure sale. Key West and Cuba form the settings for a tough story of men at the end of their tether, grasping at any straw, regardless of risk, to turn a few dollars. Rum-running, smuggling aliens, carrying revolutionary arms. Gangsters, rich sportsmen, sated with routine, dissipated women and men — they are not an incentive to belief in the existence of decent people. But in spite of the hard-boiled, bitter and cruel streak, there is a touch of tenderness, sympathy, humanity. Adventure — somewhat disjointed. The first section seems simply to set the stage — the story starting after the prelude is over. The balance forms a unit, working up to a tragic climax and finale. There is something of The Sun Also Rises,and a Faulkner quality, Faulkner at his best. A book for men — and not for the squeamish. You know your Hemingway market. His first novel in 8 years.
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1937
ISBN: 0684859238
Page Count: 177
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1937
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Patchett's first novel, set in rural Kentucky in a castle-like home for unwed mothers—where a good woman finds she cannot lie her way beyond love—has a quiet summer-morning sensibility that reminds one of the early work of Anne Tyler. Within the security of everydayness, minds and hearts take grievous risks. ``Maybe I was born to lie,'' thinks Rose, who, after a three- year marriage to nice Tom Clinton, realizes that she's misread the sign from God pointing to the wedding: she married a man she didn't love. From San Diego, then, Rose drives—``nothing behind me and nothing ahead of me''—all the way to Kentucky and St. Elizabeth's home for unwed mothers, where she plans to have the baby Tom will never know about, and to give it clean away. But in the home, once a grand hotel, Rose keeps her baby, Cecilia; marries ``Son,'' the handyman (``God was right after all...I was supposed to live a small life with a man I didn't love''); and becomes the cook after briefly assisting that terrible cook, sage/seeress, and font of love, Sister Evangeline. The next narrative belongs to Son, a huge man originally from Tennessee—like Rose, gone forever from home- -who recounts the last moments of his fiancÇe's life long ago (Sister Evangeline absolves him of responsibility) and who loves Rose. The last narrator is teenaged Cecilia, struggling to find her elusive mother within the competent Rose, who's moved into her own house away from husband and daughter. Like Rose years before, her daughter considers the benefits of not knowing ``what was going on''...as the recent visitor—small, sad Tom Clinton—drives off, and Cecilia knows that Rose, who left before he came, will never return. In an assured, warm, and graceful style, a moving novel that touches on the healing powers of chance sanctuaries of love and fancy in the acrid realities of living.
Pub Date: May 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-395-61306-X
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1992
SEEN & HEARD
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