Picking up where they left off in Flight of the Intruder (1986), Coonts and his inimitable Navy flyboy, Lt. Jake Grafton, coast on autopilot in this turgid novel of stick-and-rudder derring-do. Long on jargon, acronyms, and technical descriptions but short on actual storytelling, the saga begins in the days following the 1973 US pullback from Vietnam. On leave, Jake pays a visit to best gal Callie McKenzie's home. Callie's pop, a station wagon liberal embittered by the crippling injuries sustained in battle by his son, Theron, has a heated debate with the usually dovish Jake, precipitating an angry flight to a local watering hole. A few glasses later, Jake overhears a drunk taunting a crippled vet and launches the loudmouth through a window. To escape legal reprisal, our hero gladly accepts his first peacetime assignment: instructing Marine pilots in the manly art of carrier-based flying aboard the USS Columbia. Here's where the eponymous A-6 Intruder attack aircraft comes in, and any semblance of plot departs. Sure, there are many new characters: Hugh Skidmore, aka The Real McCoy, a sassy Navy instructor who plays the stock market; Jake's navigator, ``Flap'' LeBeau, a wisdom-spouting Afro-American Marine; and other types running the gamut from fun-loving to psychotic. But action mainly consists of A-6 crews endlessly executing noncombat maneuvers at sea. A difficult task to be sure, but not interesting enough to hold together a novel. In fact, with the exception of a running subplot featuring a ``line-in-the-sand'' conflict with the nearby Soviet fleet and Jake and Flap's bold escape from gunrunners near the story's end, Coonts's narrative style very closely resembles a commander's log—sans command. Those hale enough to finish this muddled flight manual cum novel in one sitting will likely possess enough knowledge about the A-6 to fly one in their sleep. A good thing, since the book certainly won't keep them awake. (First printing of 225,000; author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-87060-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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