A well-constructed, action-packed novel.
One man’s quest for power centers on an ancient artifact in this international thriller.
Nina Monte is an academic expert on religious antiquities and has spent much of her adult life thinking only about the past. But that changes when she’s recruited by an Italian government agency to evaluate a relic found on a 15th-century galley. This prospect excites Nina, as she feels that “something else awaited her there; something, she sensed, that had been there a long, long time. Something of value that was far beyond measurable.” After she arrives at Lake Garda, the relic’s location, she meets lonely hotelier Alessandro Pini, who soon becomes her partner in her adventure. She quickly discovers that the inquiry is actually a ruse by treasure hunter Lammert van der Venn, who’s discovered an ancient stone tablet and wants Nina to decipher its writings. Van der Venn thinks that the tablet’s mantras will grant him power: “I’ll be among those who walked into the Kingdom of Heaven, alive,” he says to Nina, who refuses to help him after finding out what kind of man he is—so he sets his sights on her Indian grandmother Sati who first told her about the tablet years before. Soon the race is on to find Sati, with Nina and Alessandro pitted against van der Ven and his henchmen. Chrusciel (Illusive Intrusion, 2014) uses detailed research to add necessary authenticity to scenes set in Germany, Italy, Austria, and India, such as in this description of Milan’s Piazza del Duomo: “In the middle of the square, to her right, she passed the monument of King Victor Emanuel II, who watched over the Gothic cathedral and other surrounding buildings.” His characters develop throughout the novel, as bookish Nina and mousy Alessandro do more than they ever thought they could do in order to help those they love. The story’s pacing is appropriately breakneck as the couple hurry around the globe and stay just ahead of van der Venn’s lurking shadow. In the end, the tablet’s mysterious powers remain nebulous, but just enough is revealed to suggest that no one should possess them.
A well-constructed, action-packed novel.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9929574-3-8
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Agato House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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