A solid, entertaining political thriller, but readers should start with the prequel.
A mild-mannered chiropractor must solve the mystery of his brother’s disappearance and unravel a vast government conspiracy in Levine’s sequel to Eye of the Redeemer (2012).
Ray Silver, a chiropractor residing in Hawaii with his new wife and twin daughters, thought he had made peace with his past and the disappearance of his brother, Frank. However, the past soon comes back to haunt Ray, starting him on the path to discovering what really happened to Frank. Called to testify before a government committee investigating possible misconduct by CIA operatives, Ray is interrogated at length about his involvement in a CIA operation in the Philippines by Francine Manetti, a ruthlessly ambitious congresswoman fixated on the fate of Frank—and a package of politically sensitive documents in his possession. His curiosity piqued, Ray asks a young news reporter named Jenna Grant to help him investigate his brother’s disappearance and the documents Manetti is intent on retrieving. Ray and Jenna’s investigation sets off a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the congresswoman, who’s willing to stop at nothing to safeguard her political secrets. Levine deftly marshals an almost impenetrably dense plot into a tense, gripping narrative. The conspiracy uncovered by Ray has more tentacles than an octopus, and at times, readers may need a chart—like the charts used by Jenna Grant during the investigation—to keep track of all the characters and plot twists. This task is complicated by frequent references to characters and events in Levine’s previous book; however, Levine includes enough back story to provide adequate context while tying together the events in both books. Ray is an amiable hero who anchors the action and gives the narrative momentum. He’s assisted by a well-developed supporting cast of characters, including his family and the clinic’s staff. Although Francine Manetti comes across as a one-dimensional villain, a surprising twist provides a better understanding of her motivations.
A solid, entertaining political thriller, but readers should start with the prequel.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481216746
Page Count: 412
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Much will be made of the kinship of Hill and his superstar father, Stephen King, but Hill can stand on his own two feet....
A rock star buys a ghost who chases him from New York to Florida, blood spurting all the way.
Jude Coyne, after a career in the darker reaches of the rock-music world, lives in upstate New York with Georgia, the latest in a succession of young pierced admirers he calls by the states of their birth. Georgia’s predecessor, Florida, is at the heart of the troubles that arrive when Coyne answers an ad offering a ghost, something special to add to his collection of creepy items that includes a Mexican snuff film. The ghost inhabits a garish suit of clothes that arrives in a heart-shaped box, and the situation is a set-up. Knowing Coyne’s taste for the weird, Florida’s sister has inveigled him into buying the soul of her and Florida’s stupendously evil stepfather, Craddock, a stinker who learned a lot of very bad magic as a soldier in Vietnam. The motive is the apparent suicide of Florida, who Coyne sent home after one too many bouts of depression. Craddock’s ghost immediately gets into Coyne’s head, urging him to murder Georgia and then commit suicide. Coyne resists, but the bad vibes are too much for his gay personal assistant, who flees the farm and hangs himself. Craddock persists in his attack on Coyne, using a ghostly truck as his assault vehicle. Lesser rock stars would have capitulated early on, but Georgia turns out to be full of spunk, and Coyne’s German Shepherds are fierce protectors who the ghost greatly fears. To get rid of Craddock, Coyne figures he will have to go to Florida to find out just what did happen to make that ghost such an abusive spirit.
Much will be made of the kinship of Hill and his superstar father, Stephen King, but Hill can stand on his own two feet. He’s got horror down pat, and his debut is hair-raising fun.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2007
ISBN: 0-06-114793-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2007
A rollicking first novel from British journalist Hornby that manages to make antic hay of a young (barely) man's hopeless resolve not to come of age. Rob Fleming is the sort of precocious loser whose life has gone so unaccountably wrong that some deep romantic grief must be invoked to explain it. ``The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking,'' according to Rob, ``are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don't know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they've been listening to the sad songs longer than they've been living the unhappy lives.'' As a case in point, the 35-year-old Rob not only listens to these songs himself but peddles themas the founder and proprietor of Championship Vinyl, a seedy vintage-record store in a quiet back alley of North London. Business is hardly booming these days, and the shop would have gone under long ago but for Rob's lawyer- girlfriend Laura, who has propped it up time and again with cash from her own very ample pool. Once she dumps Rob, however, everything is suddenly on the verge of collapsefiscally and emotionallyand Rob is forced to ask himself how he landed in such a mess. Naturally, he has no idea, so he proceeds to look up his ex-girlfriendsall the way back to high schooland ask them why things never worked out. As a pilgrimage, Rob's quest bears more resemblance to Monty Python than Chaucer, and his own inability to put two and two together somehow endears him to the very women whose affections he seems least able to requite. Reality bludgeons him in the end, and he succeeds, as the plot is spun, in drawing a few morals that surprise him by their simplicity and point toward a happy endingor at least a second chance. Fast, fun, and remarkably deft: a sharp-edged portrait that manages at once to be vicious, generous, and utterly good-natured.
Pub Date: Sept. 5, 1995
ISBN: 1-57322-016-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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