A worthy thriller starring a tireless and always-reliable protagonist.
In this fourth installment of a series, a graduate student/amateur spy aids in an archaeologist’s risky quest to locate a religious site filled with valuable relics.
Travis Weld, who works for a secret government agency, has enlisted Chesney Barrett’s help in the past. He’s also extensively trained the grad student, who’s doing environmental research in the Louisiana Atchafalaya Basin. Her latest task is liberating archaeologist David Phillips from a leftist guerrilla organization in Mexico. She succeeds, also saving Dr. Tanadas, director of Mayan archaeological studies, in the process. But her work isn’t finished: David’s father, Jacob, wants Chesney to join his son in his newest archaeological trek. She can ensure Tanadas doesn’t take credit for the discovery while protecting David from potential treasure hunters and rebels. David is searching for God’s Domain, the legendary—and presumably relic-filled—dwelling site of Viracocha, god over all gods and the people in the Americas. In a search that takes them to Peru, David and Chesney will have to make alliances with dangerous individuals, including artifact smuggler Col. Montez. But unknown to anyone, awaiting them at the sacred site is something entirely unexpected, as a formidable guardian turns David’s hunt into a test of survival. As in the preceding novels in Gallant’s (Rob the Vatican, 2007, etc.) thriller series, Chesney is a vigorous protagonist; she’s unquestionably the muscle in David’s expedition. But while the rescue mission opens the story with searing action, the pace then slows down significantly, as David deciphers hieroglyphs and decodes maps. Still, the search is often riddled with tension; Chesney must constantly remind David to keep quiet about details of God’s Domain, with suspect, greedy men populating the narrative. The latter half takes a rather surprising turn as the group nears the religious site, but it also presents Chesney with a new, seemingly unbeatable challenge. Meanwhile, her attraction to the appealing David rivals her lingering feelings for the emotionally distant Travis, but unfortunately the story doesn’t fully explore the romantic quandary.
A worthy thriller starring a tireless and always-reliable protagonist.Pub Date: June 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73229-774-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Bookmark Publications
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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