A quick page-turner that starts an exciting series off on the right foot.
Renowned professor Hardington Tachman sets off on a journey of international intrigue and romance in the first installment of a new series by Wilson.
Former naval intelligence officer and now professor Hardington Tachman—better known as Hardtack—is initially apprehensive when an enigmatic man by the name of Benjamin Cohen requests a private audience with him. Turns out Mr. Cohen has some unforeseen and potentially deadly information: A weapon is missing. Not just any weapon but one of mass destruction that, in the wrong hands, could threaten the tenuous relationship between the U.S. and the burgeoning superpower of China. Hardtack knows he’s one of the few men in the world who can do something about recovering the weapon, and he sets off across the globe on an adventure that will take him south of the border and all the way to the Far East. As if the potential destruction of diplomacy weren’t enough, Hardtack also has to contend with the ruthless Chinese Mafia, which kidnaps Mei Li, Hardtack’s young love interest. He must work fast to keep the United States from falling into a deadly conflict with an overseas foe and, at the same time, track down Mei Li before it’s too late. The author demonstrates a knack for weaving a thrilling narrative, whisking the reader away to foreign locales and keeping the pages flipping in suspense. While the novel isn’t necessarily groundbreaking in the espionage-thriller arena, it hits the right notes and has a more fully formed protagonist than many other books in this vein. Fans of the spy genre or those interested in diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the Far East will find plenty to enjoy here.
A quick page-turner that starts an exciting series off on the right foot.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1780885766
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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