Though it treads familiar terrain, this action-laden futuristic tale offers a captivating world and protagonist.
In the 23rd century, a former CIA operative looks for a way to save his terminally ill grandson in this sci-fi novel.
Oliver Hitchcock, a 78-year-old retired CIA agent, is a Beater. This means he’s beaten the Click, an audible, supposedly God-willed indication that a person will soon die. There are unfortunately Preemies as well, children who prematurely hear the Click, such as Hitch’s dead 11-year-old grandson, Oliver Jr. When OJ’s younger brother, Christopher, is apparently near death, Hitch believes he can somehow save him. An internet search returns website links alluding to the idea that the Click is a fraud, but the actual sites are all down. Believing there’s validity to these claims, Hitch, with help from a CIA contact, digs deeper. Information remains scarce, but Hitch does find allies, most notably U.S. President Andrea Wainwright, who has her hands on sensitive documents from the Church. These connect to the Click as well as a lethal virus the world ultimately overcame more than a century earlier. Hitch is clearly onto something, as certain agents, including his ex-lover Janine Rousseau, are aggressively pursuing him. With little time left to save Christopher, Hitch is determined to prevent his grandson’s imminent demise. Shear (The Fountain of Youth, 2017, etc.) quickly establishes a rapid pace, beginning with someone stealing the documents and racing to hide them. While technology in the story’s future world is nothing new (Scuds are handheld devices comparable to smartphones), provocative concepts abound. For one, the largely theocratic world has outlawed abortion and birth control, resulting in overpopulation, while gay sexuality and even in vitro fertilization are also illegal. Like most great heroes, Hitch is not without his faults: His goal is admirable, but he was also with Janine while married to Edna, an affectionate mother and grandmother. Meanwhile, though the documents’ revealed content isn’t surprising, there is a shocking double cross and a kidnapping or two.
Though it treads familiar terrain, this action-laden futuristic tale offers a captivating world and protagonist.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5092-2276-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Wild Rose Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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