An espionage adventure that focuses more on its protagonist’s emotions and concerns than on James Bond–style aspirations.
In the 1960s, a teenage girl is caught between North and South Korea when she agrees to be a spy for Seoul and go behind enemy lines in Park’s (When a Rooster Crows at Night, 2004, etc.) thriller.
Miyong is an 18-year-old war orphan in a work group on a South Korean island in 1967 when she accidentally stumbles across a battalion of disguised North Korean commandos. It’s just one of many secret North Korean attempts to commit assassinations and acts of terrorism and sabotage. She tells South Korean authorities, who use her information to kill all but one of the marauders. As a reward, they promote Miyong to a military-secretary post. She’s still dangerously naïve, however; soon, she’s badly compromised by Jongmi, an old friend who’s now the mistress of a North Korean spymaster. Jongmi tries to entice Miyong north of the 38th parallel with the lure of a reunion with relatives there. South Korean and American forces give Miyong a chance to redeem herself by training her in spycraft for a perilous rescue mission, which involves infiltrating a prison compound in the north. The operation also offers a tantalizing hint of a reunion with her parents, whom she thought were dead. Park tells a Cold War tale which has more of a sense of spiritual desolation than is typically found in spy thrillers. The heroine’s odyssey through the harsh, half-starved dictatorship of Kim Il-Sung is indeed an Orwellian nightmare. But the author is also willing to portray South Korea’s weaknesses and drawbacks, especially regarding their alliance with the Americans in Vietnam. She writes with empathy for Korean families, who were not only split by civil war and ideology, but also battered tragically by the imperial ambitions of Japan, China, the Soviet Union, and the West. The author’s prose is simple, direct, and effective throughout, eschewing pedantic detail. There are some religious elements, but Park never handles them in a preachy manner.
An espionage adventure that focuses more on its protagonist’s emotions and concerns than on James Bond–style aspirations.Pub Date: March 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4697-6908-0
Page Count: 312
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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