In the author’s debut thriller, a private investigator is recruited by a clandestine company that may be using questionable methods of surveillance.
Jake Conley becomes a media darling after he shoots and kills a gunman who opened fire in a crowded movie theater. The PI catches the attention of Alan Michaels of the Domestic Surveillance Consulting Company, who makes Jake an offer he gladly accepts—a condo, a new car and a hefty paycheck. But Jake quickly grows suspicious of the DSCC when he realizes that some monitored subjects, or “targets,” don’t seem to have done anything wrong. Coleman’s story is more espionage than mystery. The former gumshoe spends much of the novel honing his surveillance skills with technology such as drones and GPS trackers. Scenes of Jake spying are rousing, even if the work’s only routine, like observing a U.S. senator who might have info on the missing wife of Gustavo Mendoza, a DSCC investor. And the author introduces a rather chilling concept: The privately funded company is flagging citizens based on behavior, gun purchases and violent video games, but it still doesn’t prevent a couple of shooting sprees at a high school and mall. Jake is, for the most part, commendable. Readers will empathize with a man in an unfamiliar new career, and he proves himself both proficient and honorable when he goes against his DSCC orders and makes direct contact with Dillon, a seemingly harmless man under scrutiny. But Jake’s treatment of women is frivolous; it’s clear that he has feelings for his girlfriend, Medalia, that go beyond the physical; however, he notes that DSCC employee Christina is the “perfect receptionist” because she’s pretty and coquettish, while profiler Ms. Livingston could be attractive if she didn’t wear glasses and “made a little more effort with proper make-up.” The novel concludes with Jake drafting a few friends, including retired detective Thomas Luck, for a rescue mission; it’s well-done and undoubtedly enjoyable but also unfortunately signifies the close of the espionage plot. But, with Jake’s future left open, he’s definitely ripe for a sequel. At its best when the protagonist is surveilling; Jake Conley could use another book or two to work on his spying abilities.
Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2013
ISBN: 978-1478703419
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Outskirts Press Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2014
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
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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