Barely disguised talking points and a very long setup test the patience of thrill-seeking intrigue fans.
A rogue faction in the Chinese government plots the end of U.S.-Sino cooperation, and only the Secretary of Defense can stop the madness.
Former congressman, senator and Clinton-era Secretary of Defense Cohen draws on years of political and Pentagon experience for his sideline gig as a thriller writer (Murder in the Senate, 1993, etc.). His latest tells of near-calamity involving good and evil Chinese, good and evil Americans, good and evil Germans, a totally evil Russian Mafioso and a spectacularly beautiful and good Mossad assassin. The best of the Americans is Michael Santini, appointed Secretary of Defense after the incumbent was poisoned by anthrax-dusted cats. Santini, a veteran of the Hanoi prisons, swore off politics for finance after one term as senator, enjoying the fabulous wealth that came with his new career on Wall Street. But his sense of duty kicked in when the president begged for his help in managing the crises that have been hitting the free world with increasing frequency. At the heart of the troubles is some serious saber-rattling in China, where evil General Li has authorized nuclear tests in the Muslim-dominated western provinces. An unreconstructed Maoist, the general has had enough of the capitalist roaders and plans to involve Vladimir Pavlovich Berzin, a corrupt candidate for the Russian presidency, in a scheme that will rub America’s face in the dirt. Berzin, meanwhile, has his own plan to control the universe. In backstabbing D.C., National Security Advisor Joe Praeger has his own agenda and the president’s ear. Santini begins to pick up the threads of the various plots during a visit from his opposite number in Beijing, one of the good guys. Fortunately, he is backed by the straight-shooting Chiefs of Staff.
Barely disguised talking points and a very long setup test the patience of thrill-seeking intrigue fans.Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2006
ISBN: 0-765-31619-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2006
Ex–County Coroner Dr. Sara Linton does seem to be managing a break from her own Job-like sufferings, at least for this...
Still more proof, if any were needed, that the most monstrous demons in Grant County, Ga., are lurking in the master bedroom.
Faith Mitchell, of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, returns home late from a training seminar to find her house trashed, her baby daughter locked in the shed, a man lying dead on the laundry-room floor—Faith herself will kill two other intruders before they can escape, and a third corpse will turn up in the trunk of the family car—and her mother gone. Capt. Evelyn Mitchell was eased into retirement from the Atlanta PD years ago after her narcotics squad was implicated in a web of corruption. Two of her former colleagues are doing time; a third, former Det. Boyd Spivey, is on death row for murder. So it’s not all that surprising that gang-bangers would have broken into her house looking for a big score. But why are their surviving colleagues in Los Texicanos and the Yellow Rebels suddenly so determined to annihilate each other, and how does Evelyn’s abduction fit into the picture? “I think we must be caught in the middle of some kind of war,” Faith’s boss, GBI deputy director Amanda Wagner, tells Faith’s partner, endlessly troubled Will Trent. The mounting body count, however, pales beside the ferocious conflicts among regulars in this high-octane series (Broken, 2010, etc.). Faith’s brother Zeke, returning from an Air Force posting, instantly resumes his long feud with her. Will is alternately abused by Amanda Wagner and his spiteful wife Angie. And Faith’s climactic showdown with her mother’s abductor will reveal far more personal motives for the runaway mayhem than she ever could have imagined.
Ex–County Coroner Dr. Sara Linton does seem to be managing a break from her own Job-like sufferings, at least for this installment.Pub Date: June 21, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-345-52820-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The fairy-tale ending calls for some convenient coincidences and changes of heart, but Scottoline’s legion of fans will be...
A Connecticut teacher’s long-sought and hard-fought pregnancy turns into a nightmare when Scottoline (Corrupted, 2015, etc.) unleashes one of her irresistible hooks on her.
Forced to extreme measures because her dreamy husband, Marcus, is sterile, Christine Nilsson has finally gotten pregnant using sperm from anonymous Donor 3319. At the party the staff at Nutmeg Hill Elementary have thrown to celebrate her departure, she gets a look at a serial killer doing his perp walk on TV, and he’s the spitting image of Donor 3319. When the Homestead Bank refuses to confirm or deny the identity of the donor, Christine and Marcus react in dramatically different ways. Marcus is determined to sue Homestead and whomever else is necessary to find out once and for all whether the father of the child he’s awaited so long has killed at least three nurses from Virginia to Pennsylvania. Christine persuades her best friend, Lauren Weingarten, to accompany her to West Chester, Pennsylvania, where Zachary Jeffcoat has been incarcerated, to ask him whether he’s Donor 3319. But Zachary is considerably shrewder and more manipulative than Christine, and before she knows it, she’s helping him instead of vice versa, finding him a raffish lawyer, volunteering to work as an unpaid paralegal to help with his defense, and interviewing the latest victim’s neighbors. As usual, the complications aren’t quite up to the level of the startling hook, and Christine needs more than a bit of luck to dig up the information she seeks. Along the way, she finds out a good many other things she definitely wasn’t looking for.
The fairy-tale ending calls for some convenient coincidences and changes of heart, but Scottoline’s legion of fans will be too relieved to object.Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-01013-1
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
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