Fast-paced Balkan adventure starring an engaging academician/action hero reminiscent of Indiana Jones.
When Luk Begovic leaves his stagnating university career behind to join Promethia Risk Group, he is soon embroiled in political intrigue and criminal manipulations beyond his imaginings. Promethia, a private company devoted to increasing worldwide gender equality in order to enhance peace and stability, is targeting sex slave trafficking in the war-torn Balkans. Luk and the group quickly link up with a humanitarian organization providing treatment to the former sex slaves. Central to this organization’s success is Dr. Fatmire “Mili” Bektashi, a dedicated woman with a tragic, mysterious past. As the two groups cooperate to confront human trafficking, Luk and Mili find themselves getting closer to each other on a personal level. Together they confront revenge killings, shadowy international alliances, U.N. corruption, mass executions, hidden family relationships and paramilitary maneuvering. Debut author Bisseux writes with a gritty, raw-edged realism that will keep readers turning pages for the next surprising plot twist. These twists continue up until the conclusion, but Bisseux avoids the trap of sacrificing depth for action. The narrative effectively portrays the ravages of the ethnic conflict, sometimes in scenes that are almost painfully graphic. The human costs of both war-making and peace-building are evocatively conveyed. The setting is intimately linked to the plot, and Bisseux seems to capture cultural nuances well. In contrast, the dialogue is somewhat wooden and disappointing; many of the characters speak with the same voice and use the same expressions. Though some of the last-minute rescues and coincidental happenings are unrealistic, the suspension of disbelief required is no more than is typical for this genre. Repeated spelling errors ("were" is often "where," for example) distract a bit but are forgivable in a book of this quality. Alternately brutal and touching, a triumphant novel not to be missed.
Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2011
ISBN: 978-1456842536
Page Count: 257
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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