Sure to please fans of governmental intrigue and fast-paced suspense; puts swift prose, commanding characterization, and...
Religion and politics prove malevolent bedfellows in this serpentine debut that employs a variety of modern, headline-making conundrums.
Farrelly’s riveting political thriller begins with the momentous death of a Jesuit priest coinciding with the faltering re-election prospects for an American president. The accidental demise of Father James Ingram, president of Ignatius University, has journalist Peter Merrick upset, particularly because Ingram was his mentor. Merrick had just returned from a harrowing reporting assignment that took its toll on both his emotional and physical well-being. Meanwhile, incumbent conservative U.S. president Arthur Wyncott becomes anxious when his bid for re-election seems to be tanking as popularity surges for his Independent party opponent, Thomas Archer. Bolstered by the promised votes from proletariats and minority and Catholic demographic groups, the heat is on for Wyncott to lure those undecided voters back to his side of the political race. The church, ever in the midst of a sexual abuse scandal, has seen better days, and Wyncott soon becomes desperate to reverse the damage at any cost. Boston-based Cardinal John Mulcahy employs the nefarious head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Owen Feeney, to micromanage and assuage the damage from the ballooning multimillion-dollar scandal as more and more abuse victims come forward. Farrelly dexterously reveals plot points (crowned with a sordid coverup scheme) and allows them to develop gradually as the presidential election nears. Merrick finds himself embroiled in the melodrama after he is asked to write Ingram’s eulogy, which requires some research into his instructor’s history. In his friend’s belongings, he finds unopened, returned letters to the victims of abuse occurring at various parishes he’d been assigned to. Merrick’s diligent spadework reveals the somewhat unsurprising true culprit. Even the supporting characters and subplots are compelling, including Merrick’s wife, Emma, their marital back story, and particularly Ally Larkin, President Wyncott’s astute campaign assistant, who emerges as an ethical, clever woman whose nobility and keen sense of right and wrong help guide her-decision making, even as the stakes veer higher and the manipulative political machinations multiply. By the time this page-turner reaches maximum velocity, a fine balance has effectively been established between political intrigue and religious scandal. Though probably not a good fit for world-weary readers looking for an escape, Farrelly’s command of hot-button issues is impeccable. The priest abuse scandal seems ripped from today’s newswires as much as the desperate, calculated political maneuvers of a presidential candidate up for re-election. Readers will find themselves in for a striking, remarkable politically correct political thriller with a conscience.
Sure to please fans of governmental intrigue and fast-paced suspense; puts swift prose, commanding characterization, and contemporary hot topics to grand use.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Cavan Bridge Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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