by William Bernhardt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 22, 2019
A brisk tale with a surprisingly sympathetic protagonist who should be able to sustain another winning series.
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Bernhardt (Justice Returns, 2017, etc.), known for his long-running Washington, D.C.–set Ben Kincaid courtroom-drama series, returns with a new attorney in a different city.
Lawyer Daniel Pike has always done things his own way, and that’s made him one of the top criminal defense attorneys in St. Petersburg, Florida. But when Daniel’s violent client Emilio Lòpez, whom he’d just saved from conviction, gets involved in a deadly shootout, the lawyer’s white-collar firm fires him. This leaves the arrogant attorney adrift, but then he meets an attractive woman named Maria Morales in a bar, and she invites him to a mysterious meeting. At that gathering, the shadowy “Mr. K” asks Daniel to join the Last-Chance Law Firm. His new associates include strategist Maria, researcher Garrett Wainwright, and facilitator Jimmy Armstrong. Daniel’s first case involves arranging the adoption of Esperanza Coto, a 9-year-old orphan who’s about to be deported to El Salvador. But this is complicated by the fact that Esperanza’s guardian, Gabriella Valdéz, has been charged with murder in the aforementioned shootout. As Daniel investigates the case, he learns that the woman is enmeshed in a much larger conspiracy. He’s going to need to solve this puzzle quickly to save Gabriella and Esperanza from grim fates. This novel is, first and foremost, about Daniel’s moral evolution. In the beginning, the self-centered attorney has no qualms about representing a “walking waste product” like Emilio; he even turns away a woman seeking help for her abused sister (”Too messy. Not profitable”). But as he takes up the cause of Esperanza and Gabriella, he comes to realize that the downtrodden have more urgent need of his services. Also, Bernhardt shows how Daniel was previously a lone wolf who felt that he didn’t have to answer to anyone, but, thanks to his Last-Chance Law Firm partners, he comes to appreciate the value of teamwork. Overall, the author’s narrative maintains a fast pace as Daniel discovers possible suspects before it reveals the unlikely killer.
A brisk tale with a surprisingly sympathetic protagonist who should be able to sustain another winning series.Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-948263-36-8
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Babylon Books
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 1990
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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