A Caine Mutiny for the Reconstruction era. Well done, even if some fans of historical fiction will prefer their fiction a...
Suppose, just suppose, the Radical Republicans decided that the amnesty Ulysses S. Grant offered to Johnny Reb didn’t have a sufficiently punitive sting. What might have happened had they put Robert E. Lee—Saddam Hussein in gray—on trial for treason?
Yeah, and what would have happened if Julius Caesar had had a machine gun? Hardhearted readers of Civil War history have little patience with counterfactuals, but such departures from the strict truth can be highly instructive—and besides, veteran historian Fleming (Washington’s Secret War, 2005) knows how to spin a tale. As his latest opens, New York news mogul Charles Dana, well embedded inside the War Department, is hopping mad, bent on punishing the entire rebel South for its perfidy, and he expects his Irish flunky Jeremiah O’Brien to hop to the cause by whispering into a few well-placed Union ears, agitating for Confederate war hero Robert E. Lee’s arrest and trial for treason—and a finale in which Lee swings at the end of a rope. O’Brien, himself embedded with a Louisiana fille de joi who has just a little more wartime experience than she lets on, balks. Dana barks. A kangaroo court is assembled; embittered abolitionists and anti-rebels such as Benjamin Butler and Ambrose Burnside fulminate; strict constructionists object; and much legalistic back and forth ensues even as the behind-the-scenes action takes on the dimensions of a Len Deighton plot. Even when Grant takes the stand and contradicts key Radical assertions, and even as other rebel-hating Yankee generals tear up when Lee speaks of honor, Fleming keeps things plausible—and, happily, takes pains that his dialogue not slide into anachronism. And whether intentional or not, it’s all quite timely, as latter-day politicos debate states’ rights and the legality of the Dred Scott decision.
A Caine Mutiny for the Reconstruction era. Well done, even if some fans of historical fiction will prefer their fiction a little more, well, historical.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2006
ISBN: 0-765-31352-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The real-life events of the War of the Currents are exciting enough without embroidery. Still, readers who care more about...
The great tech innovators of the '90s—that’s the 1890s—posture, plot, and even plan murder in this business book–turned–costume drama.
In the late 19th century, as Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse began wiring America for electricity, the titans locked horns over which electrical standard would prevail—AC or DC—in a struggle that came to be known as the “War of the Currents.” Novelist (The Sherlockian, 2010) and screenwriter (The Imitation Game, 2014) Moore chops up and rearranges a decade’s worth of events, squeezes them into two years, adds a few crimes, and serves the result up in a lively if unsurprising legal thriller. He tells the story from the point of view of Paul Cravath, the young attorney charged with defending Westinghouse against a potentially devastating patent suit brought by Edison. The key to winning, Cravath decides, is to get Nikola Tesla—the mad scientist to end all mad scientists—to invent a better lightbulb. Subtle this isn’t. A devastating lab fire! An inexplicable disappearance! A beautiful diva with a mysterious past! An attempted murder! An electrocuted dog! The characters mug and posture like actors in a silent film with dramatic captions: “She turned her glare to Westinghouse. 'You’re a co-conspirator in this villainy?' " Tesla, a Serbian, talks funny: “My accent is wide. Perhaps you have been noticing.” Eventually, inspired by the innovative business practices of Westinghouse and Edison, Cravath invents the 20th-century law firm and wins the hand of the lady.
The real-life events of the War of the Currents are exciting enough without embroidery. Still, readers who care more about atmosphere than accuracy will enjoy this breezy melodrama.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-812-98890-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
A compelling portrait of a woman facing the difficult limits of love.
The day after Nina Browning's son, Finch, is accepted to Princeton, he makes a terrible decision, and Nina's perfect life comes crashing down.
Raised in the small town of Bristol, on the border of Tennessee and Virginia, Nina married well. Her husband, Kirk, and she have raised Finch among Nashville’s privileged, well-manicured mansions, sending him to the prestigious Windsor Academy. Yet an alcohol-soaked party ends with Finch snapping compromising pictures of an unconscious young woman, Lyla Volpe, a sophomore on scholarship to Windsor. The photos spread like wildfire through the town, leaving Lyla devastated. Her father, Tom, a carpenter struggling to raise Lyla alone after her mother deserted them, is determined to exact justice from the school’s Honor Council. Nina is dismayed to find Finch and Kirk blithely unconcerned about Lyla's feelings or Finch’s crime. They are far more interested in using the Browning family wealth to convince the school and Tom to turn a blind eye—not to mention using Finch’s sexual magnetism to manipulate Lyla’s emotions. Distraught, Nina forges friendships with Tom and Lyla, which will expose the fault lines in her own family. Giffin (First Comes Love, 2016, etc.) shifts perspectives from chapter to chapter, giving voice to Lyla’s teenage fears of social repercussions and Tom’s efforts to balance his fierce protective streak with his desire to give his daughter her freedom. Yet it is Nina’s chapters that ring most powerfully, as Giffin captures the complexity of Nina’s emotions: Her maternal instincts to protect her son war against her feminist alliance with the wronged Lyla; her wistful memories of her beloved little boy wrestle with her outrage at his racist, sexist, and increasingly devious young adult behavior; and her carefully constructed sense of family fractures against her realization that Kirk may not be the husband, father, or man she thought he was.
A compelling portrait of a woman facing the difficult limits of love.Pub Date: June 26, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-17892-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
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