A fast-moving tale of a spy who, much like the novel itself, is a little ragged around the edges.
A farm girl enters a world of danger in Horne’s (Breaking Mobius, 2013) military thriller.
Eighteen-year-old Rain Wilson has lived a modest life fixing fences and driving a tractor on her father Tolley’s Colorado ranch ever since her mother, Dahlia, left more than a decade ago. But things change dramatically when she learns that her dad is a former special agent/sniper and her mother is an active operative who may have gone rogue in Russia. The “weasel-faced” CIA chief of staff Christopher Dalton, who has bad history with Tolley, tries to recruit him to find Dahlia. When he declines, Rain volunteers instead. Although she excels during her training, Dalton places her in the Army instead of the CIA; stationed in Baghdad, she becomes “battle buddies” with Sgt. Prescott Willow. After Rain saves Dalton’s life by killing an insurgent, she and Prescott steal the chief’s cellphone, hoping its contents will lead them to Dahlia. Instead, it puts them on the run from the CIA, and along the way, Rain falls for the sensual Prescott. Tolley swoops in to find his daughter, aided by his old team: tech guru Shanty, ponytailed “muscle” Mogli, and former Navy SEAL Black. Plenty of action ensues, and Rain transforms into a “blonde bombshell” who fills out a sequined dress nicely, becomes well-versed in espionage and torture, and learns that she can trust no one. The plot is exaggerated, yet fun in a Scandal sort of way. But as the implausible storyline moves swiftly from the Middle East to Russia to the United States, the dialogue can be over the top, as when Tolley says, “He seems like a good kid, minus the ties to the most deadly man in the world,” or Black says, “That would be the end of American society as we know it.” Although Horne works to make the characters here more three-dimensional with their back stories, they still seem trite; Rain’s transformation from a girl wearing yesterday’s laundry into a woman who puts “effort into her hair or makeup” particularly smacks of cliché.
A fast-moving tale of a spy who, much like the novel itself, is a little ragged around the edges.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9911063-4-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Yoshima Books
Review Posted Online: March 14, 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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