An exhilarating third installment of a consistently unpredictable and entertaining thriller series.
A seemingly rudimentary business deal in Ukraine turns into a fight for survival for a New Orleans attorney in this novel.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Jonathan Brooks’ law firm is all but destroyed, and his two partners are “nowhere to be found.” But he has at least one remaining client, Cramer Banks, who has a job offer for Jonathan. It’s a software-related deal in Kyiv, Ukraine; as Jonathan doesn’t know the tech, Cramer also sends his chief technology officer, Kevin Wyatt. Surprisingly, Kevin is a no-show at the meeting in Kyiv. Jonathan soon finds evidence that Kevin made it to the airport, where someone likely kidnapped him. Accordingly, Cramer asks the lawyer to track down his esteemed CTO (and keeps Jonathan on the payroll). The reason for Kevin’s abduction isn’t initially evident, but it may be his past association with a government agency. Luckily, Jonathan has help, including someone from the Romanian Embassy. But his search for Kevin ultimately puts him in the cross hairs of menacing individuals. Meanwhile, Jonathan’s beloved ex-wife, Linda Fabre, on a journalism assignment in North Korea, is in potential danger as well, and he believes those targeting him will take her for leverage. In this third volume of a series, Frieden’s (The Serpent’s Game, 2013, etc.) protagonist remains a fresh, convincing character. For example, his involvement in international espionage is believable, and his enduring love for Linda is admirable, even if she doesn’t reciprocate. The plot sometimes feels convoluted, as Jonathan tries to identify villains and motivations (though readers learn a bit more information than the attorney). But it precipitates a few memorable set pieces, particularly Jonathan and his allies in the abandoned town of Pripyat, site of the Chernobyl disaster. The author aptly describes Pripyat’s desolation, from an empty bus-stop bench to “uncut yellow-green fields.” The often intense story is rife with characters in captivity, shocking deaths, and an ending that’s sure to linger in readers’ minds.
An exhilarating third installment of a consistently unpredictable and entertaining thriller series.Pub Date: March 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9747934-8-1
Page Count: 468
Publisher: Avendia Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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