An engaging stand-alone thriller but also an intelligent addition to its series.
Ridenour’s (Behind the Mask, 2016) second thriller featuring Alexis “Lexie” Montgomery transplants the FBI agent from her New Orleans home to the swamps and mud of South Carolina.
Thirty-two-year-old Lexie’s Southern heritage and previous undercover experience working with extremist groups make her the ideal candidate to investigate a case near Pawleys Island that involves the Earth Liberation Front, an international underground organization that sabotages groups that it sees as profiting from environmental destruction. Allegedly, the ELF blew up a work site office owned by Global Resources Inc., a corporation constructing a bridge from the mainland to the pristine Spirit Island, the site of a planned “high-dollar resort.” Dwight Jacobson, the company’s CEO, belongs to a powerful Charleston, South Carolina, family that “no one messes with”—until now. Dwight’s estranged older son, Jeffrey, who goes by “JJ,” is a “hippy” out West; his younger son, Aaron, works “for daddy.” Lexie poses as a nature photographer and befriends Capt. Meade, an old river boatman. When the two spot a seaplane landing on nearby Cat Island, Lexie suspects the locale is being used for criminal activity. Meade tells her it’s an evil place, and Lexie’s cohort, Special Agent Don West, agrees that the island shouldn’t be explored. Ignoring them, Lexie goes there on a boat rented from handsome Logan Burkhart, whose eyes are “the color of molten chocolate.” Unsurprisingly, Lexie meets with danger on Cat Island and, later, on the mainland. Ridenour gives this thriller a vivid sense of place and a timely topic in eco-terrorism. Much of its authenticity owes itself to the author living near the real-life Pawleys Island and to her previous career as an FBI undercover operative infiltrating criminal organizations, including one comprised of domestic terrorists. Another plus, in addition to the novel’s realistic plot and believable dialogue, is its depiction of an aggressive, dedicated, and charming female protagonist. Tension effectively builds as Lexie’s overconfidence and overly trusting nature backfires, thrusting her into life-threatening situations and trouble with the bureau.
An engaging stand-alone thriller but also an intelligent addition to its series.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-944193-94-2
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Deeds Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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