A commendable thriller that makes its medical science riveting and exhilarating.
In Van Anderson’s (The Organ Takers, 2014, etc.) second series entry, Dr. David McBride evades police and a crazed Russian spy while trying to save a kidney patient’s life.
David is wanted by the New York City police after exacting revenge on the man responsible for his pregnant wife’s death. Another man, a rogue government agent known as “Mr. White,” previously blackmailed David into a scheme involving black market organs. White’s 26-year-old daughter, Heather, is currently dying from renal disease and needs a kidney transplant. He wants David to continue a dead surgeon’s research which involved growing new human organs from stem cells. In return, White claims that he can get David’s father, who’s suffering from dementia, better treatment. Unfortunately, Mikhail Petrovsky, formerly of Russia’s Federal Security Service, is also after the research, and he’s willing to resort to violent means in his mission to obtain a series of pertinent notebooks. He and his thugs target several people, including a biochemist who may have hidden the most essential notebook away. David and White race to protect those in danger and secure the research before the Russians do. This, of course, puts both of them in the line of fire—and the cops are still on David’s trail as well. The second installment of Van Anderson’s series ably expands on the previous installment’s story. Some new particulars regarding the enigmatic White, for example, make him a stronger, more intriguing character; for instance, the spy turns out to be better at surveillance than hand-to-hand combat, and as a result, he’s just as vulnerable as David is. The energetic narrative keeps its edge with a constant sense of threat: Heather has a limited amount of time left to live, and the cops and Russians pursuing David are sometimes a step ahead of him. As in the previous series entry, there’s plenty of medical terminology, but it’s generally comprehensible, as David explains much of it to White. Van Anderson also offers striking details, as when David vividly describes a gruesome wound that he suffered during the events of the last book.
A commendable thriller that makes its medical science riveting and exhilarating.Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9907597-3-7
Page Count: 262
Publisher: White Light Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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