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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
