A fast-paced thriller with some troubling undertones regarding race and gender.
In this novel, a Canadian woman who travels to Pakistan is forced to serve the dark political purposes of men from her past.
Valerie Steinman has a difficult enough life in Toronto, where her marriage is falling apart. The abusive Paul loves his Jewish mother, who will never accept the gentile Valerie as a member of the family. Then things get much worse: Ruby, a friend from Valerie’s childhood, reappears with unwelcome information. It turns out that Valerie’s father, Carl Miller, deserted the American military years ago and that she was born in South Carolina. As such, she is not a Canadian citizen. In fact, she has recently (unbeknown to her) been made a citizen of Pakistan due to her recent in absentia appointment to that country’s National Assembly. Ruby insists that Valerie accompany her to Pakistan or else her father’s true identity will be revealed and he will be imprisoned. Valerie goes to her new country with the understanding that it will only be for a year: “Valerie wondered how such a place possibly existed today. It survived on the border between the lawlessness of the wild west of American history and the rigid structure of its English colonial past. Pakistan. At least it was still on this earth, a part of the world, but just barely.” In Pakistan, Valerie becomes the prisoner of Ruby’s brother, a cruel man with a disturbing blend of Islamic and Nazi beliefs. Valerie hopes that her brother, Robert, can save her—unless he’s been part of the plan all along. In this thriller, Rana’s (A Model Wife for a Gentle Imam, 2012) writing is sharp and polished, and the narrative always feels propulsive due to the urgency built into every scene. But the fact that every piece of information needs to be wrestled out of the characters leaves the book feeling more confusing than mysterious. The horrible treatment of the female protagonist and the alarming racial politics of some of the male characters are not fully condemned by the narrative, which makes their use feel exploitative at times. The reading experience becomes unnerving, but it’s often not in a good way.
A fast-paced thriller with some troubling undertones regarding race and gender.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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