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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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