An intense but confusing and melodramatic espionage tale.
An American spy stumbles on a powerful organization’s secret terrorist plot in this fourth installment of a series.
John Wolfe is about to retire from the Agency, “one of the last master spies.” But on the day his farewell party is scheduled, he notices he’s being followed, and then learns a good friend and fellow agent, Jimmy Trang, is dead. Trang’s death is ruled a suicide with suspicious alacrity. In addition, John discovers his boss, T.S. Sprout—as evil as he is incompetent—is involved in a conspiracy to sell secrets to China. Sprout is in cahoots with a clandestine group that calls itself the Order of the Golden Squirrel, whose influence is so formidable it can “control, or at least strongly influence, every major country.” John encounters the beautiful and mysterious Mary Killigrew—it’s not clear for whom she works—who claims to have a list of the Order’s original members, and he’s inexorably drawn into investigating their treasonous plans. Branam (Nemesis Syndrome, 2016, etc.) continues his Wolfe Adventure Novel series, reprising a familiar cast. But unlike its predecessors, this installment gives the lead role not to FBI agent Thomas Wolfe, but his older brother, John. Thomas, “the most dangerous warrior on the planet,” is still in the mix to lend John a helping hand, as is the FBI agent’s wife, Terry. John is recruited to join the Order, but he’s dedicated to exposing its scheme to catastrophically harm the United States. The author generously packs the story with action—there’s no shortage of shootouts and fistfights—as well as romantic intrigue. But the plot feels like a self-parodying cartoon: superspies fighting supervillains with names like The Major and The Russian. The tale is also so complicated, the protagonist—the fictional conceit is that the narrator, John, is the writer of the book soon to be pulled from the shelves for disclosing state secrets—apologetically points it out: “Note: my editor tells me that I’m throwing too much technical detail at the readers and I will lose most of you.”
An intense but confusing and melodramatic espionage tale.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4582-2198-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: AbbottPress
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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