A satisfyingly self-righteous update of Advise and Consent that reminds you how little American political fiction has...
Patterson (Exile, 2007, etc.), whose Kerry Concannon trilogy already showed one fictional paragon’s run for President (No Safe Place, 1998), trots out another perfect candidate just in time for the 2008 election cycle.
Sen. Corey Grace (R, Ohio), an authentic war hero with Presidential hankerings, is the perfect alternative to Senate Majority Leader Rob Marotta (R, Penn.), a calculating hack, and televangelist Bob Christy, founder of Christian Commitment, who’s convinced the planet’s headed toward a Rapture that certainly won’t include agnostics, gays or Democrats. Slowly, circumspectly, Corey tests the waters, and the voters like him. That’s no surprise, since he always speaks articulately and judiciously, often several paragraphs at a clip. As his campaign trudges through Iowa and New Hampshire to South Carolina, a series of flashbacks reveal the skeletons in Corey’s closet—the error in judgment that killed his navigator in Iraq and won Corey a medal, his dead brother’s closeted homosexuality, his romance with African-American actress Lexie Hart—but while all these revelations threaten Corey’s election, none tarnish his honor. The road to the nomination is arduous, but whenever Corey gets into real trouble, he’s rescued by his iron principles or (twice, amusingly and unforgivably) by providential terrorist attacks that give him a chance to show his mettle. The race, which gives Corey many chances to ventilate his mom-and-apple-pie stances on abortion, birth control, school prayer and godless liberals, is as exciting as Patterson’s ingenuity and melodramatic flair can make it. The characters, however, are strikingly less original. Even the most casual Monday-morning political analysts will have no trouble seeing through the shamelessly thin fig leaves meant to cover figures based on Colin Powell, Karl Rove, Pat Robertson, Rupert Murdoch, Rick Santorum and Jim McGreevey.
A satisfyingly self-righteous update of Advise and Consent that reminds you how little American political fiction has changed over the past 50 years.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8050-7948-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2007
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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