Agencies and emissaries spanning the globe hope to thwart an assassination attempt on the president of the United States in the second novel featuring retired CIA agent Ike Blass (The Leningrad Affair, 2011).
British agency MI6 sends operatives to Madrid with an assignment to subvert a terrorist plot that’s already been initiated. One of the terrorists, Amin, is tracked to Cuba, where it is believed that a dying Fidel Castro’s power will soon shift to his brother, Gen. Raul Castro. It’s here in Cuba where many of the story’s players congregate: Blass enlisted to neutralize a Cuban training camp, Maria Lopez of MI6 with a vendetta, another CIA agent working covertly and Cuban exile Jesus Cantu foiling a double-cross. The author’s gleefully convoluted novel introduces characters at a rapid-fire pace, and as such, most partners don’t stay partners for long in ever-changing circumstances. Some of them even seem to disappear only to return at an integral moment, like Pedro, in the U.S. illegally (dubbing him an “exchange student”) and deported to Mexico. Blass is initially a supporting character in his own story, but he becomes the focus as he and Lopez keep their eyes on Amin before they ultimately turn toward one another. Amin, as the central villain, is more complex than his narrative counterpart, particularly with the occasional glimpses of his family’s catastrophic past. He proves charming with the ladies, an advantage when he can work it in his favor (using a woman as a means of gaining entrance to Mexico, en route to the U.S.) but simultaneously his greatest flaw, as the opposite sex tends to distract him from his operation. Blass may return in a future book, but any number of the other characters (whether or not that character makes it to the end), especially the composed, capable Jesus Cantu, could easily handle his or her own series. Story and characters that surprise and entertain on a multitude of levels will have readers drumming their fingers on Kindle screens awaiting Terry’s next novel.
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0983149743
Page Count: -
Publisher: eBooksTalkToMe
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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