An action-packed thriller with careful doses of sci-fi and family drama.
In Renneberg’s (The Mothership, 2013) new thriller, a corporate financier seeks the truth about his long-lost father and finds himself caught up in an international time-traveling conspiracy.
Craig Balard works in mergers and acquisitions at a well-to-do New York City firm. After a secretive and wealthy client, MLI, suddenly cuts off its business, all the company’s partners are speedily, professionally executed. Before Craig realizes what’s happening, a mysterious caller offers him information about his father, whom he believed died a Gulf War hero, in exchange for the master list of MLI’s bank accounts. Craig escapes his imminent death or capture by several different violent conspiratorial bodies—including the FBI and a dangerous military group exacting a coup d’état in Moscow—with the help of Marlena, a hologram projected into the present from a dystopian 23rd century, and Valentina, a Russian criminal investigator. Glimpses into Marlena’s devastated reality, where mankind barely survives aboard a space station, reveal that Craig’s present-day actions could determine the very future of humanity. Renneberg delivers a typically exciting thriller, with plenty of sharp turns, heavy weapons and touches of science fiction. The time-traveling, continent-hopping narration is remarkably smooth, although the storytelling is sometimes complicated by the author’s wordy fascination with military gear and intelligence, but techno-thriller readers who geek out over helicopter models and Soviet special ops will likely be pleased. The plot is also uncomfortably driven by Cold War–hangover politics that sometimes smack of anti-Russian and anti-Chinese xenophobia; such unsubtle tropes are familiar in spy stories but muddle an otherwise balanced take on geopolitical corruption and conflict. Nevertheless, Renneberg’s complex, accessible tale is fun to follow.
An action-packed thriller with careful doses of sci-fi and family drama.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9874347-6-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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
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