A crime tale offers some intriguing ideas, but the stiff narrative style makes for an uneven read.
This action-adventure sequel focuses on the war against two cartels in Mexico.
Marnia Gonzalez, daughter of the Mexican president, is inspired by the bravery of Jacob Edwards of the U.S. Coast Guard when he saves her from an attack on a cruise ship. She resolves to reject her life of privilege and do something to help stop the crime ravaging her country. After her training, she is assigned to the Anti-Cartel Task Force led by Col. Antonio Ramirez. That puts her in the middle of the uneasy truce between the Manerez and Santiago cartels, the two most powerful operations dealing in drugs, weapons, and other illegal activities. Marnia quickly becomes the public face of the task force when she rescues some children from Santiago’s traffickers with the help of connected hotel owner Rosemary Sargent. Marnia uses her strength and intelligence as well as her family connections to fight the cartels and the Russian money launderer Boris, who is working behind the scenes. On an assignment in northern Mexico, Marnia’s job gets more complicated when she discovers her family is involved in the corruption, and she finds an unexpected ally in Jonathan Manerez, son of Maximillian, head of the Manerez cartel. Marnia’s rise from rich kid to crime-fighting heroine provides for an intriguing tale, and Hendrickson (The Good Fight, 2018, etc.) has surrounded her with a strong cast of characters. There are some captivating concepts—a cattle charge against one of the cartel’s armies later in the book is an especially nice touch. But the author’s narrative voice is flat, and much of the story reads like a summary. In Chapter 1, Hendrickson writes of Marnia: “The horror she endured on the cruise ship dramatically and irreversibly changed her life.” Readers don’t get to see that firsthand; they are merely told about it. Similarly, when she begins her training, the author writes that “she asserted herself as a natural leader and talented military strategist” but shows none of that development.
A crime tale offers some intriguing ideas, but the stiff narrative style makes for an uneven read.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9994509-4-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Blurb
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 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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