The chickens come home to roost when American soldiers, on a base in Dixie, are the victims of their own counterinsurgency techniques intended for Third World warfare; this latest from Kennedy (Rules of Encounter, 1992, etc.) is more preachy than suspenseful. At Fort Francis Marion, on the South Carolina/Georgia border, the Special Operations School teaches the would-be Green Berets how to lay mines, poison water, resist (and apply) torture. One of those trainees is Miguel (Mex) Cortines, whose family suffered terribly at the hands of American-trained troops in his native San Salvador. He saw his mother blown apart by a mine and his father hooked up to an electric-shock machine. Once Mex has crossed the border and entered the military, it's time for payback. He plants a grenade in the garage of the mining instructor, poisons the base water supply, and shocks the visiting Salvadoran, Colonel Maritin (the ``gentle giant'' cannot bring himself to kill him). The novel does not focus on Mex, however, until the halfway point. (The first half, as well as detailing Mex's disruptive attacks, shows us his unit on various missions in the rough terrain near the base; the unit is a standard-issue ethnic cross-section, with loyal buddies tormented by a sadistic sergeant.) Mex is arrested and court- martialed; his original prosecutor, staff judge advocate Capt. Gordon, has been so moved by his story that he switches to defense. Even the court is sympathetic, giving the prisoner a mere two years in Leavenworth; but Mex is spared even that when his buddies, with a precision timing the Rockettes would envy, spring him from captivity. There's an awful lot of filler in this poorly constructed morality tale, and Mex is too much of a lightweight for the role of avenging angel.
Pub Date: July 29, 1993
ISBN: 0-312-09292-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy,...
Britisher Haddon debuts in the adult novel with the bittersweet tale of a 15-year-old autistic who’s also a math genius.
Christopher Boone has had some bad knocks: his mother has died (well, she went to the hospital and never came back), and soon after he found a neighbor’s dog on the front lawn, slain by a garden fork stuck through it. A teacher said that he should write something that he “would like to read himself”—and so he embarks on this book, a murder mystery that will reveal who killed Mrs. Shears’s dog. First off, though, is a night in jail for hitting the policeman who questions him about the dog (the cop made the mistake of grabbing the boy by the arm when he can’t stand to be touched—any more than he can stand the colors yellow or brown, or not knowing what’s going to happen next). Christopher’s father bails him out but forbids his doing any more “detecting” about the dog-murder. When Christopher disobeys (and writes about it in his book), a fight ensues and his father confiscates the book. In time, detective-Christopher finds it, along with certain other clues that reveal a very great deal indeed about his mother’s “death,” his father’s own part in it—and the murder of the dog. Calming himself by doing roots, cubes, prime numbers, and math problems in his head, Christopher runs away, braves a train-ride to London, and finds—his mother. How can this be? Read and see. Neither parent, if truth be told, is the least bit prepossessing or more than a cutout. Christopher, though, with pet rat Toby in his pocket and advanced “maths” in his head, is another matter indeed, and readers will cheer when, way precociously, he takes his A-level maths and does brilliantly.
A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy, moving, and likely to be a smash.Pub Date: June 17, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50945-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2003
A fable about the consolatory and strengthening powers of religion flounders about somewhere inside this unconventional coming-of-age tale, which was shortlisted for Canada’s Governor General’s Award. The story is told in retrospect by Piscine Molitor Patel (named for a swimming pool, thereafter fortuitously nicknamed “Pi”), years after he was shipwrecked when his parents, who owned a zoo in India, were attempting to emigrate, with their menagerie, to Canada. During 227 days at sea spent in a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger (mostly with the latter, which had efficiently slaughtered its fellow beasts), Pi found serenity and courage in his faith: a frequently reiterated amalgam of Muslim, Hindu, and Christian beliefs. The story of his later life, education, and mission rounds out, but does not improve upon, the alternately suspenseful and whimsical account of Pi’s ordeal at sea—which offers the best reason for reading this otherwise preachy and somewhat redundant story of his Life.
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-100811-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
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