Newcomer Alderson develops a complex plot with real skill, though his laconic style removes the juiciness of a true...
Tough-talking lawyer investigates the disappearance of millions from a corporate account—and finds out what happened to her missing father.
Rosalind Wilcox is general counsel to a Washington, D.C., financial group, but she’s not exactly a typical attorney. Her take-no-prisoners style has earned her the respect of her male colleagues and the awe of her boss, Marshall Waverly, a southern gentleman who confesses his favorite kink to Rosalind one boozy night: he wants to be dominated by her. She’s only too happy to crack the whip, thus doing pretty much as she pleases at Rigel Associates and finding life not too boring among the suits. And the pay is good: “Sure, people lived and died, loved, hated, sought the Great Spirit, climbed mountains, wrote novels, structured leasebacks under Delaware law, accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, held AK-47’s aloft in the name of Allah—but only one thing really mattered: capital flow.” That’s something Rosalind learned from her father when he disappeared after being indicted for his involvement in financial scams and shady deals. Before that, she and her four sisters had led a charmed life in sleepy Zanesville, Ohio, although tomboy Rosalind raised a lot of hell when no one was looking and still yearns secretly for Drew Gillespie, the working-class sex god who taught her how to handle a gun and, uh, other things. Rosalind’s investigation reveals that her family’s past is about to catch up with her: years back, a Rigel partner got the firm’s start-up capital from her father, and it’s possible that pére is mixed up in their latest project, a pipeline in Colombia to be financed by a group of investors that includes a Schwarzeneggeresque heavy named Van Zyk. Rosalind calls on Drew to help her out, but—practical as always—beds him before the shooting starts.
Newcomer Alderson develops a complex plot with real skill, though his laconic style removes the juiciness of a true thriller. And the heroine’s matter-of-fact amorality and cynicism fall flat.Pub Date: March 6, 2001
ISBN: 0-7679-0657-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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