A roller-coaster ride to the finish, this book confirms Giordano as a writer to eagerly watch.
Giordano (Birds of Passage, 2014) introduces Anthony Provati, a reckless Lothario who becomes a hunted man in a global showdown of vicious organized criminals and terrorists.
Anthony Provati, lounge pianist and gallery owner, has an ill-advised flirtation with the mistress of a dangerous Russian mob boss, Gorgon Malakhov. Gorgon is a jealous, vengeful monster with a bloodthirsty bodyguard, and the woman, Sophia, is both terrified and conniving. Tensions escalate between Provati and Malakhov while Provati and Sophia relieve considerable tension together. Provati’s life is now in danger, and in one of a few plot contrivances, he seeks help from his NYPD friend who happens also to be on the mobster’s hit list. What follows is a parade of brutal deplorables—Italian, Colombian, and Jewish mobsters in New York, then corrupt Russian intelligence agents, Italian Mafiosi, fine-art thieves, and ex-Egyptian government spies when the action moves to Europe and the Middle East. At the end of the road is the Islamic State in the Levant, known as ISIL or ISIS, the most heinous of the nonstate terrorists. The threats feel very real. The plotting and writing throughout are taut and the stakes are very high. Not only are individual lives in peril, but plans are laid for massive attacks and enormous security breaches. Sales of submarines, Strontium-90 (a component of diabolical “dirty bombs”), and shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles are all part of the high-level negotiations. Also mixed into the nefarious loot are massive amounts of heroin and three small, but priceless, Vermeer paintings. The book could benefit from moderating some of the villains for more impact; Malakhov’s gambit, for example, when approaching Provati is to threaten his close friend and employee: “Well, just so you know, if you cross me again I’ll rape her in front of you. I’ll parade in my men, and they’ll do her three at a time while you watch, then I’ll slit her throat. Your death will be neither slow nor easy.” Provati is an unlikely, intemperate hero but an enjoyable one.
A roller-coaster ride to the finish, this book confirms Giordano as a writer to eagerly watch.Pub Date: June 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-941861-34-9
Page Count: 306
Publisher: Harvard Square Editions
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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