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CLOSE COMBAT

Name: CLOSE COMBAT
Author: W.E.B. Griffin
ISBN: 0-399-13766-1

VOL. VI OF THE CORPS

by W.E.B. Griffin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 13, 1993

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Griffin's WW II saga of the Marines in the Pacific continues (Line of Fire, etc.), now covering the five weeks from October 11 to November 18, 1942. This is not the place for beginners to pick up the history, since Griffin's very big cast is in the middle of everything. Readers who enlisted early, however, will recognize everybody. Millionaire Marine general and WW I hero Fleming Pickering is still at the center of action. As Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox has his eyes and ears on the Pacific battle scene; and Pickering, who dabbled in a little hands-on warfare on Guadalcanal, is back to his staff role, stroking Douglas MacArthur and interpreting supersecret decryptions from Japanese radio traffic. The Americans are just barely hanging on at the Guadalcanal airfield they grabbed from the enemy, and the Japanese want it back in the worst way. Meanwhile, the heroic young fliers—including Pickering's dashing son, who held back the air attack in the big battle—have been ordered back to the US to pick up some fancy medals and to star in a cross-country savings bond drive. Hollywood megapublicist Jake Dillon, another WW I hero serving his beloved Corps, also helped on Guadalcanal and returns to his USMC flacking duties, bringing together glitz and guts. Very much in the middle of things. Good military and political gossip—but little action.

Pub Date: Jan. 13, 1993

ISBN: 0-399-13766-1

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
DEADLY ASSETS
by W.E.B. Griffin & William E. Butterworth IV

- BOOK REVIEW
THE ASSASSINATION OPTION
by W.E.B. Griffin ; William E. Butterworth IV

- BOOK REVIEW
TOP SECRET
by W.E.B. Griffin ; William E. Butterworth IV

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CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

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Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).

All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."

Pub Date: April 8, 1974

ISBN: 0385086954

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE
by Stephen King & Peter Straub

- BOOK REVIEW
NEVER FLINCH
by Stephen King

- BOOK REVIEW
YOU LIKE IT DARKER
by Stephen King

- PERSPECTIVES
Appreciations: Carrie Turns 40

- SEEN & HEARD
Stephen King Used ‘Carrie’ Advance To Support Mom

- BOOK TO SCREEN
New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.