A brisk detective novel sequel that packs a punch.
Private eye Eli Quinn returns to track down the person controlling a drone used in a political assassination attempt in Britt’s (Closure, 2015) latest mystery.
Quinn, now an officially licensed private investigator, has one case under his belt and is currently waiting for his next client. He and his reporter pal, Samantha Marcos, brave a hot Arizona morning in the town of Pleasant to watch state senator Jackie Brand discuss her plan to end Sheriff Horace Otto’s program targeting undocumented immigrants. Volunteers, including Quinn’s buddy Jack “Beach” Beachum, handle security at the event but don’t anticipate a drone flying into the podium and exploding. The senator fortunately survives but ends up in a coma. Beach, wary of the sheriff’s apathy regarding any investigation, asks Quinn to look into it, passing along a clue: a homing device among the rubble that points to an inside job. Still, narrowing down the suspect list isn’t easy, as potential drone pilots could belong to the Desert Drone Club or could have studied at the Arizona Drone University flight school. Anti-immigration groups, too, strongly oppose Sen. Brand’s immigration policy. It isn’t long before Quinn thinks someone’s watching him, and soon, there’s a more overt threat: a muscle-bound thug who shows up at his house uninvited. Luckily, Quinn has backup—most notably, his trusty German shepherd companion, Solo. As in his previous novel, Britt hits the ground running in this relatively short tale. The expedited plot gets the PI on the case as soon as possible and generally works in the story’s favor; however, Quinn does lock onto suspects perhaps a little too swiftly. The series as a whole shows some progress, adding an ally in the form of hard-core gamer/CIA guy Pauly Peters and more formidable villains who can match Quinn’s taekwondo prowess. Solo is, again, irresistible, and his unspoken rapport with Quinn is even more engaging than the hints of romance between Quinn and Sam. One standout is the PI’s certainty that Solo is aware of an impending face-off against some baddies because people had “discussed the plan in front of him.” That said, there’s refreshing subtlety in the human couple’s slowly developing relationship, as well.
A brisk detective novel sequel that packs a punch.Pub Date: July 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9977614-0-5
Page Count: 130
Publisher: Ink Spot Books
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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