Full-tilt action drops recurring and new characters into a plot rife with gunfire and the occasional explosive.
Branam’s (Hunting Evil, 2015, etc.) latest thriller finds former Army Ranger Tom Wolfe, now with the FBI, assembling his own covert team to save his kidnapped wife in Iran.
Vernon Crassman blames Tom and Terry Wolfe for his current misery. The couple targeting the criminal CEO is the reason he lost his power and wealth and is now in asylum in Iran. Crassman, deformed and in constant pain from a gunshot to the face (the Wolfes didn’t do that one), willingly trades his stealth technology to Iranians for help allocating his revenge. This starts with a six-man team abducting Terry from the couple’s Lake Tahoe cabin while Tom’s in Quantico, leaving a note designating 15 days to find the woman. Tom’s certain Crassman’s in Iran, but FBI boss Ed Johnson can’t sanction a rescue mission thanks to a presidential ban on operations in that country. So Tom rallies a few capable individuals—some friends (California cop Ray Burton) and new cohorts (enigmatic Allahand, Ed’s recommendation). Terry, meanwhile, may have a means of escape: a potential ally among her captors. Tracking down Terry is Tom’s top priority, but there’s also a side job from Ed (identify a traitor), while taking out Crassman is a perennial temptation. Branam’s third installment of his Wolfe series is his most rapidly paced novel yet: Terry’s abduction happens quickly, and Tom’s team encounters all types of obstacles, from Islamic State group militants to distrust among the rescue operation’s members. The narrative is ample in details (thoroughly mapping out Crassman’s compound) and characters’ histories, especially shared ones. References to earlier books, in fact, are so well incorporated that accompanying footnotes—in one instance specifying how and in what story someone “got what he deserved”—are superfluous. Terry’s not a typical hostage, proving smart and proficient even in captivity. The characters in general offer plenty of surprises; some withholding information could signify a double cross and not everyone manages to walk away from the mission unscathed.
Full-tilt action drops recurring and new characters into a plot rife with gunfire and the occasional explosive.Pub Date: Dec. 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4582-2068-4
Page Count: 414
Publisher: AbbottPress
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2017
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
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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