A thriller based on a fundamental tenet of Sun Tzu's Art of War: Wars are won not on the battlefield, but in the minds of men. After trying to disentangle the minds here, we'll take the action, please. Assistant Secretary of State Desaix Clark (hero of Maximum Vigilance, 1992) is sent to Beijing by his friend and boss, Secretary of State Jim Moffat, to avert a Chinese/Japanese invasion of Taiwan. His initial meeting with Prime Minister Lee Ann Wu is rife with hidden meanings underlying the chatter about food and culture; Desaix, also a psychiatrist, is happy to engage in the minister's mind games. When Ann reveals a possibly apocryphal conflict with her defense minister, General Y.K. Chang, Desaix is torn between negotiating with Chang, who periodically detains him in torture chambers, or with Ann, who proves to be mentally unstable. His uncertainty extends to all the top officials he meets from China, Japan, and Taiwan, any of whom may be vying for pan-Asian control. He and his entourage, which includes CIA Beijing Station Chief Phoebe Hill, race via underground tunnel, rail, and ship to Shanghai, where an international delegate will attempt to reach a resolution before war erupts. Desaix gradually uncovers the most shocking secret of all regarding bureaucratic rivalry between the US State Department and the CIA. Realizing that he is being used as a pawn between Ann and Chang, Desaix is now unable to trust even his old friend Jim. The narrative embodies Sun Tzu's state of formlessness, in which the warrior follows his adversary with a plan that has no constant shape, observing and waiting until he has the opportunity to strike. Unfortunately, the complex deceptions and lack of structure create a difficult reading experience. The mental gymnastics Desaix employs to get himself out of dangerous situations are lost on baffled readers. Pieczenik uses Chinese philosophy to weave a web so intricate that it's opaque and abstruse.
Pub Date: Feb. 3, 1995
ISBN: 0-446-51557-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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