In this jarringly anti-Muslim thriller, a US stealth cruise missile veers off course during the Gulf War and lands intact in the Iranian desert, giving the government a prototype from which to develop its own cruise missiles and to take up where Saddam Hussein left off. Bakhtiar, a fundamentalist in the Iranian government, arranges to have the prime minister and his right hand man murdered. Once in power, Bakhtiar gets the Ayatollah's blessings to hit a series of oil tankers in the Gulf, making it clear that he will cut off the flow of oil to the West until Iran's economy is resuscitated. Working against him are James Duke, the pilot hero of Nightstalker (1992) and Strike of the Cobra (1993), and an ensemble cast that includes Mark Collins, a CIA agent posing as a weapons trader who is sent in to reactivate communication with ``Zenith''; a female Iranian engineer who had been sending the Agency information; U.S. Vice Admiral Nelson Zachiem III, a politically ambitious career officer eager to prove the Navy can clean up this mess with minimal help from the Air Force; and Democratic senator Paula Jenrette, whose leaks to CNN are implausibly blamed for the outbreak of the war. Rizzi is at his best describing the different airplanes, radars, and weapons and how they all work together. His understanding of Muslim fundamentalism is superficial at best, racist at worst, and although he gives lip service to his female characters' intelligence, ``Zenith'' is a damsel in distress complete with chador, and Jenrette is a soft-headed liberal with blood on her hands. Only Duke and his fellow top guns end up looking good; as everyone else fades out of the picture, they conduct a high speed chase that pits complex US military technology against the Iranians chasing Collins and ``Zenith'' across the medieval landscape. Thin plot, thinner characterizations, great techno-speak and top-gun action. (Maps and diagrams, not seen)
Pub Date: Sept. 20, 1994
ISBN: 1-55611-391-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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