This thriller offers an intricate puzzle with a few surprises and some strategic power grabs as a hardened journalist...
A seasoned Washington, D.C., newspaper reporter uncovers a potentially explosive corruption scandal in this debut political novel.
Beck Rikki, a Washington investigative journalist, is casually sipping a Corona Light when he receives a call from Daniel Fahy, a senior figure at the Justice Department. Fahy wants to tip off Beck about a high-ranking politician that he thinks is caught up in a bribery scheme. Beck is intrigued, if a little skeptical, but it has been a while since he’s written a good investigative story. Fahy possesses recordings of U.S. Sen. David Bayard talking about an apparent money-laundering scheme involving his properties in the Cayman Islands. As the money may be coming from a contractor that Bayard’s Senate committee oversees, officials are anxious to prosecute before the next election. Beck starts his probe, but he isn’t sure whether Fahy harbors political motives of his own or plans to set up the reporter somehow. The FBI pays a visit to Geneva Kemper, a fairly sultry lobbyist who works for Serodynne Corporation, a government contractor that has donated funds to Bayard and his PAC. She is also the wife of a senator and something of a recreational nudist. Concerned about the fate of one of Serodynne’s bids, Geneva introduces herself to Beck, hoping to find out information about the investigation. The two begin a torrid affair, and revelations about not just Bayard and his dealings, but also Geneva’s investments and motives put Beck in serious jeopardy. Pullen has written a solid, descriptive thriller that shows that he is well-informed and savvy about the newspaper business and the political world. Beck and Geneva are convincing denizens of the labyrinthine world of post–9/11 and post–Citizens United politics in Washington, and their competing interests in the midst of their affair keep the complex plot from feeling like familiar territory. Geneva, in particular, is quite a creation: a woman who easily excels in this play-for-keeps yet cordial world of deal-making and power plays but despises it and longs to escape. All the characters perform their roles well, even Beck’s trusty red armchair, and in Pullen’s hands the shady and sometimes-judicious relationships among government, business, and journalism are shown in a penetrating and astute manner.
This thriller offers an intricate puzzle with a few surprises and some strategic power grabs as a hardened journalist pursues the story of his career.Pub Date: May 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-63435-6
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Blair House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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