A rare Vietnam story that manages to draw power from its protagonist rather than from the bewildering tragedies of war.
In DeStefanis’ (The Philosophy of Big Buck Hunting, 2011) first novel, a young man in the Vietnam War confronts the differences between good and evil.
Brady Nash leads a bucolic life in 1967 America, and as this novel opens, he sits at the base of an oak tree in Tennessee cradling a hunting rifle and admiring the crisp, fresh landscape spread out before him. Brady is about to trade cornfields for jungles, as he’s enlisted in the Vietnam War as a sniper. He’s no stranger to the perils of combat; his best friend, Duff Cowan, went away months ago and was tragically killed in action. Despite this, Brady can’t help feeling excited—but when he arrives on the other side of the world, things begin to look a bit skewed, and suddenly Duff’s death doesn’t seem so honorable. In fact, Brady suspects that his friend might have been a victim of foul play. In true thriller mode, Brady infiltrates the secretive world of black ops to find answers about his dead friend, and he learns that in a deadly war, things aren’t always as clear as they are back home and that good and evil are not as black and white on the battlefield. Brady’s loyalties become fragmented; he has love for his country, commitment to his duty, grief for his best friend, and a desire to understand and potentially avenge his death. This novel’s prose evokes a simplicity and clarity evident in certain classics of American literature, raising it slightly above most conventional wartime psychological thrillers (“Brady held the barrel up to the bedside lamp….The spiral of lands and grooves gleamed like a mirror under the light”). The opening section, for example, feels somewhat reminiscent of Sherwood Anderson’s work. The conflicts that play out in Brady’s psyche work well in the Vietnam War setting, which is always ripe for exploration of moral dilemmas. Fans of historical fiction will also find plenty to enjoy here.
A rare Vietnam story that manages to draw power from its protagonist rather than from the bewildering tragedies of war.Pub Date: June 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481896801
Page Count: 432
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 27, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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