Following his dynamic 1998 debut, the Antarctic thriller Ice Reich, ex-journalist and Pulitzer Prize—winner Dietrich moves on to Australia for this slower-paced future-world saga of malcontents and convicts roaming the outback in a deadly game orchestrated by an all-powerful corporate entity. Halfway through the 21st century, United Corporations has made the world secure—even if a plague born of genetic engineering did accidentally kill off the entire human population of Australia—but Daniel Dyson, a comfortably midlevel programmer, isn—t satisfied. His bad attitude earns him a reprimand, yet suddenly, out of the surrounding darkness of conformity, a ray of hope shines forth in the shapely form of Raven. She entices him into a subterranean escapade, then turns him on to Outback Adventure, a secret, selective tour agency offering the ultimate challenge: a no-gadgets survivalist trek across now plague-free Australia, with only those reaching the coast able to get back home. Although Raven vanishes, Daniel still signs up, trusting he—ll run into her over there. But, as he and the group he’s teamed with learn to their dismay, when Raven saves them from dying of thirst, their ultimate adventure is just another means for Big Brother to stifle dissent—by throwing together the restless and the criminal in a place apart, with no intention of bringing any of them back. Raven proves to be not the fellow free spirit Daniel had fallen in love with; she is instead an agent of the corporate monolith he detests. As they traverse the continent, however, with a pack of killer convicts pursuing them for the key to escape, which the two possess, a new understanding grows between them, as does a new hope for humanity. The pro-wilderness, outside-the-box message is hammered home in ways ranging from clever to clunky, but when the action stops and the pondering begins, a lack of character depth makes this story about as succulent as a mouthful of desert sand.
Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2000
ISBN: 0-446-52457-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1999
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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