Politics, romance, and murder descend on the Vatican as a jewel thief works to pull off the biggest heist in history.
Craig Reynolds, a dashing and enigmatic jewel thief who “aborts elaborate alarm systems, unlocks the most intricate vaults, and eludes massive manhunts,” has stumbled on a golden opportunity. On a train to Rome, he runs into Darlena Aldonzo, a beautiful Italian gymnast who had previously been his hostage—the sense of mutual respect and admiration that led him to release her is now blossoming into something more. Unable to resist his charms, Darlena goes against her better judgment and agrees to spend time visiting the eternal city with her former captor. She even takes him to meet her dear friend Thad, a priest who currently works at the Vatican. Thad conveniently reveals to Craig that he is the only person alive who possesses a map of the Vatican’s vast underground catacombs—a chance Craig can’t pass up. As Darlena allows herself to be drawn into Craig’s plans, a terrible danger brews in the background and threatens to complicate the heist and put all of their lives in danger: a group of ruthless cardinals is plotting to usurp the pope. Meanwhile, INTERPOL Detective Martin Von Meier, who has been chasing Craig for years, is getting closer. Gallant has created likable main characters who careen from one unbelievable scenario to the next, but his emphasis is clearly on their predicaments. Within the first 20 pages of meeting Darlena, she is almost drowned, almost raped, almost strangled, kidnapped, and finally chased by a gang of rioters “plundering” a commuter train—all before the main plot begins. The rest of the novel follows this aggressive pattern, delivering well-staged, suspenseful action sequences in rapid succession but leaving little time for much else. Craig’s disabled sister, for example, vanishes from the novel. Some may be disappointed that Gallant didn’t devote more time to the intriguing relationship between his two leads, but those who love page-turning thrillers will be delighted that, for these characters, danger lurks everywhere.
A thriller that delivers real excitement but glosses many gripping plot points.
Pub Date: May 14, 2007
ISBN: 978-0595439249
Page Count: 234
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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