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CALLISTO

Name: CALLISTO
Author: Torsten Krol
ISBN: 978-0-06-167294-1

by Torsten Krol ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2009

Funny, suspenseful, scary and, most importantly, the best portrayal of an American Innocent since Forrest Gump.

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An endearing simpleton blunders into the War on Terror in this blistering satire, the second novel by the pseudonymous Australian author of The Dolphin People.

Meet Odell Deefus, a white guy with a black name, as he puts it. He’s a big fellow, slow on the uptake, but real proud of his greatest achievement, reading that Rawlings classic The Yearling 16 times. The 21-year-old is on his way to join the Army when his ancient Chevy expires near Callisto, Kan. He’s offered shelter at a desolate farmhouse by Dean Lowry, as mean as Odell is good-natured. A misunderstanding causes Odell to accidentally kill his host with a baseball bat. There’s another dead body in the house: Odell finds Dean’s Aunt Bree in the freezer. The hole Dean had dug for her in the yard will serve for him, though Odell will have to move the body six times to avoid detection. Through it all he is contrite but stoic. He reports the missing Dean and his aunt’s death to the cops, but his small fib about Dean’s association with Muslims leads to FBI and Homeland Security involvement and a nationwide hunt for the presumed terrorist, while Odell himself becomes a suspect. The busy plot also involves an evangelical preacher linked to a right-wing Presidential contender, and Dean’s sister Lorraine, a hard-as-nails prison guard who’s part of a drug-smuggling ring. The inexperienced sentimentalist Odell had had a massive crush on Condoleezza Rice; now he falls for Lorraine. The story rolls along as Krol nicely balances humor and menace. Odell, the “starry-eyed baby bird that just fell out of the nest,” has some close calls but lands on his feet. All that changes when he is sent to a tropical base (Guantánamo); the caper aspect disappears in this horribly believable hell, where the world’s most unlikely terrorist is put through the wringer.

Funny, suspenseful, scary and, most importantly, the best portrayal of an American Innocent since Forrest Gump.

Pub Date: March 1, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-06-167294-1

Page Count: 464

Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2008

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

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THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

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THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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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.