In a notably cynical, well-plotted thriller from Chafets (The Bookmakers, 1995, etc.), the kidnapping of three American basketball luminaries on a goodwill tour of Israel triggers a series of world-shaking events. Snatched in Tel Aviv by an aide of Islamic fundamentalist Abu Walid, legendary coach Digger Dawkins and NBA players Tyrone Holliman and Greg Banion—at first mistaken for a Zionist hierarch and his two bodyguards—are whisked away in a limo to the outskirts of Jerusalem. Before their arrival, Banion is knifed to death, leaving only Holliman (a black star of the Detroit Pistons) and Dawkins (an irascible white) as captives of Walid, a US-educated physician who harbors great grudges against both the infidel West and rival Muslim sects. Though not what the doctor ordered, the prominent hostages suit his purposes—including the release of terrorists held in Israeli prisons. When Walid's initial demands are rebuffed, he begins surgically dismembering Dawkins. Videotapes of these atrocities provoke America's president first into bombing Shi'a enclaves in Lebanon and then Iran itself, thereby destroying sworn enemies of Walid, a militant Sunni. While the White House prepares for a demonstrably popular war against Islamic extremists, and the Israeli Prime Minister defers to the US, Holliman's brother Rasheed (a retired Motown cop who has built a prospering industrial security business) deduces correctly that none of the major players in this deadly game has an agenda that makes a priority of bringing the abductees back alive. With an old pal in Israel's police force, Rasheed mounts a private rescue mission that puts him at odds with both Shin Bet and American intelligence operatives. Following a rough-and-ready education in the Middle East's murderous folkways, he manages to liberate Tyrone in a bizarre confrontation with Walid and his loyal-to-a-fault underlings—-a finale that produces an opera-level body count. A lively, suspenseful tale that reckons the true price of tribal animosities, religious fanaticism, and Realpolitik.
Pub Date: April 11, 1996
ISBN: 0-446-52047-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1996
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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