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The Coalition

An entertaining thriller about a ruthless political assassination.

An FBI agent and an intrepid reporter uncover a vast right-wing conspiracy to gain control of the U.S. government.

Marquis (Blind Thrust, 2015, etc.) uses the perspectives of multiple characters to narrate a contemporary political thriller. As the novel opens, a female assassin known by her code name, Skyler, pulls off the ultimate coup: she shoots and kills the U.S. president-elect. Though she is bankrolled by an ultra-right-wing Christian organization called American Patriots (AMP) and its charismatic leader, Benjamin Locke, Skyler herself acts only out of self-interest—and a hatred of men, because she was abused by them for most of her life. But when she loses her heart, she must decide whether she’s willing to continue playing the game. Meanwhile, as AMP seeks to convince the new president, Republican Katherine Fowler, to carry out its own agenda now that she’s in the White House, FBI agent Ken Patton tries to solve the assassination case. When he runs into old flame Jennifer Odden, a journalist who is working undercover at AMP, the two decide to team up to figure out who is behind the killing and how far up the conspiracy goes. Soon, they find themselves targets as they race to bring the murderers to justice and stop them from killing again. Marquis has woven a tight plot with genuine suspense. At 495 pages, the book is a little on the long side. But the author for the most part propels the story forward as the protagonists work to uncover the truth. Skyler, a sexy but damaged female killer, reads a bit more like a male fantasy than a three-dimensional woman; she has too many lines like “there was no room left in her heart for love,” and her arc is the most predictable. Still, all the characters hold the reader’s attention as they dive further into danger. Marquis’ storytelling hits close to the zeitgeist—too close, in the case of his description of a shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado. Here’s hoping the rest of these plotlines stay confined to the page.

An entertaining thriller about a ruthless political assassination.

Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-943593-08-8

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Mount Sopris Publishing

Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2016

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A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

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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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THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE

Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.

Life lessons.

Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.

Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.

Pub Date: July 1, 2004

ISBN: 0-345-46750-7

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004

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