Evidently, Munson (Fan Mail, 1993, etc.) can't get enough of the twisted-obsession angle he's used to construct previous thrillers. This time, his villain is a necrophiliac computer geek with a taste for starlets, and the story is disappointing. But what a fabulous sicko! Tom Gibson, a.k.a. Cyberwolf (the superhacker's nom de guerre), devises an elaborate plot to kidnap actress Susan Bradstreet from the sanitarium in Boston where she has gone, on the advice of psychiatrist David Hightower, to recover from an anxiety disorder. Once she's in his hands, Cyberwolf intends to ransom millions from the company producing Susan's new film. Of course, before turning over his beautiful hostage, Cyberwolf has nefarious designs on her body, which will be lifeless by the time he's finished. Cyberwolf works neither alone nor without substantial insurance: Juan Cortez, a digital flunkie with gambling debts, and Elmer Whipkey, a gun dealer dipped in criminal grease, supply his extra muscle, while a customized computer program named Chernobyl lurks in cyberspace to take out the entire East Coast communication grid, thus supplying the authorities with added incentive to do things his way. David Hightower, however, has taken far more than a professional interest in Susan—he's in love with her and determined to see that she's rescued. Jetting from L.A. to Beantown, he encounters the usual collection of ineffective cops and resorts to staging his own one-man commando raid. The shrink can swing a shotgun and hurl knives with surgical accuracy. Still, he's up against the challenge of his life in Cyberwolf; only through teamwork with the notably resourceful Susan does he arrive at the final showdown, and even then it may be too late to solve the riddle of Cyberwolf's secret computer chamber. An attempt at a Thomas Harris/William Gibson salad that lacks the former's pulp grossness and the latter's technical byte.
Pub Date: March 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-525-93781-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
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