Another winner in this highly entertaining series, capped off with satisfying revelations.
An elderly Bonnie Parker in the 1980s tells of how she and Clyde Barrow protected the Manhattan Project in this final thriller in a trilogy.
What if Bonnie and Clyde’s deaths in a famous 1934 shootout were faked, so that they could serve American interests as undercover agents? That’s the premise of the previous two books in this trilogy, in which the outlaws changed their names to Brenda and Clarence Prentiss and performed special assignments for their handler, Sal. In 1984, 74-year-old Bonnie has made a deal with reporter Royce Jenkins: She’ll give him her full story if he helps her solve three mysteries, including Sal’s true identity. As they investigate—and dodge people following them—Bonnie explains how she and Clyde went undercover in the 1940s as owners of the Ranchland Deluxe bar in Richland, Washington—a city that was also the location of a top-secret plutonium production site for the Manhattan Project. Their mission was to discover who in the community might be “willing, or forced, to share secrets with America’s enemies.” By 1945, they narrowed down the suspects to six Americans, plus a couple of suspicious Germans and Russian circus performers—but they soon found themselves dodging knives, bullets, other spies, and a firebombing. Later, Royce tracks down the surprising, explosive truth about Sal and the organization backing her. Hays and McFall (Bonnie and Clyde: Dam Nation, 2018, etc.) keep up the momentum in this third series outing, which features plenty of action and danger. There are also intermittent steamy interludes between Bonnie and Clyde, who come off as a wisecracking, low-rent version of Nick and Nora Charles from The Thin Man. Tricky puzzles, chases, spycraft, and red herrings keep the plot bubbling along. But underlying all the shenanigans is a serious consideration of the nature of patriotism in an America that’s increasingly becoming dominated by the military-industrial complex. Overall, the book makes a rousing stand in favor of have-nots, working people, and dreamers; at one point, Bonnie unusually stands up for gay rights in 1945 (“Love is love no matter what”).
Another winner in this highly entertaining series, capped off with satisfying revelations.Pub Date: May 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9974113-5-5
Page Count: 332
Publisher: Pumpjack Press
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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