A gonzo adventure novel that shreds the conventional wisdom that pulp can be pigeonholed.
In the dark days leading up to the Iraq War, two black marketeers blunder into an ancient conspiracy involving a secret sect of Islamic mystics.
Here’s the thing: If you’re going to write pulp fiction, jump in with both feet and let the blood fly. That’s what Bangladesh-based journalist Hossain has done in this kinetic debut novel set in the exploding streets of Baghdad. Our “good guys,” so to speak, are Dagr, a widowed former professor of economics who's turned to crime in the wake of the U.S. invasion, and Kinza, an anarchist berserker who can’t wait for the bad things to come—“When the rage comes, just stay behind him, that’s all,” warns Dagr of Kinza. It wasn't very pretty in the city in those days. “It’s a war,” observes one of Kinza’s corrupt connections. “We kill you, you kill us, who cares? The important thing is to have a sense of humor about it. When we were bombing the Kurds, do you think they were crying like babies?” This bickering duo is trying to get out of the city when they’re hired by a local sheik to track down the shadowy “Lion of Akkad,” a suspected serial killer who turns out to be a centenarian mental patient named Afzal Taha with ties to the Druze, the aforementioned cult. Unfortunately, during a skirmish, Kinza shoots the son of Hassan Salemi, a particularly nasty imam with a thirst for bloodshed. To facilitate their movement through the war-torn city, the two renegades enlist the help of Marine Pvt. Hoffman, a dope-smoking, rule-breaking hooligan who’s supposed to be looking for weapons of mass destruction but really just wants to be in country to “blow shit up.” It’s a marvelous mix of genres, blending the visceral atmosphere of a war movie with the casual nihilism of Catch-22 or the original M.A.S.H. complete with an Indiana Jones–style treasure quest to employ a mystical watch that doesn’t tell time to unleash the ancient power of the Druze before the sect’s ancient Alchemist, the real enemy, catches up with them.
A gonzo adventure novel that shreds the conventional wisdom that pulp can be pigeonholed.Pub Date: March 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-939419-24-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Unnamed Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
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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