Fans of war stories and Christian fiction should be rooting for the hard-nosed hero to find grace.
In this novel about the war on terror, bravery and faith go hand in hand.
This American military drama begins in 2003 in a village square near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Dressed as an Afghan woman, Special Operations officer Jake Drecker slips into the crowd and shoots a Taliban leader in the head. Meanwhile, an American Christian missionary has been kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan. And on that very same day, Special Ops forces in the mountains north of Jalalabad in Afghanistan are about to be overtaken by Chechens, but they are saved by a mysterious army. Weaving these incidents together, the author creates a story of heart-pounding action and edge-of-the-seat suspense. Jake is a professional killing machine who struggles with his past and sarcastically refers to himself as a “nice Jewish kid from Hawaii.” His commander, Michael “Pancho” Sanchez, leads the Prodigal Avenger Special Operations task force. Soon to be promoted to colonel, Pancho has a high degree of respect for Jake and the other soldiers in the field. Pancho’s last wish before becoming a paper-pusher is granted when he and Jake must take out the terrorist Abbas Bin Azzam. But a defect in the plan occurs when the missionary hostage is placed in their crosshairs. Can they obliterate the bad guy while saving the captive? Or is Jake going on a crazy suicide mission? Though the real star of this novel is Jesus (Jake fights an inner battle with disbelief), the Christian theme is not heavy-handed in the story, and any reader should appreciate the predicaments of the characters involved. Moynihan’s (No Greater Love, 2015) polished prose is fast-paced, and his gritty descriptions are sometimes starkly poetic. For example, during one exchange of fire, “the mini-guns opened up and began chewing up the hilltop. Shimmering brass shell casings fell in twisting clumps from the guns to the earth below.” The author also offers some singular points of view. In a scene that’s both compassionate and provocative, readers go inside the mind of a failed suicide bomber to find out how he came to such a low point in his life.
Fans of war stories and Christian fiction should be rooting for the hard-nosed hero to find grace.Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-948888-79-0
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Elk Lake Publishing, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2019
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
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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