The prince of British secret agents, gadgetry, and exalted consumerism, 007, James Bond himself, returns after a 16-year absence. And Gardner (who savagely parodied Bond in the Boysie Oakes books) is quite equal to the glossy sex, snobbery, and death-proof derring-do that are Bond's spine. Now Bond is revamped into today's health-conscious hero: his alcohol intake is "drastically" cut back (Perrier aplenty), his cigarettes are a special low-tar blend, and he's got a gas-saving but incredibly souped-up Saab 900 Turbo to replace his beloved old Mark II Continental Bentley. Miss Moneypenny still worries about James, of course, and Chief of Staff "M" has just secretly restored 007's license to kill. His mission: to penetrate the Scottish castle of Anton Murik, Laird of Murcaldy, an industrialist and disgraced nuclear physicist easily capable of making his own reactor, a megalo-paranoid in the Fleming tradition. Is Murik (codename Warlock) about to threaten the West for billions of bucks? Bond goes incognito to the Ascot races, steals some superb pearls from Murik's beauteous ward Lavender Peacock, and returns them to Murik, who invites him to stay a few days at Murik Castle. James finds the castle full of great art and willing bedmates—and he's hired by Murik to kill terrorist leader Franco, who is in international nuclear cahoots with Murik. But things go awry as Bond fails to warn M, races about France, and watches Lavender model in a fashion show during which Franco accidentally shoots Murik's mistress Mary Jane with an untraceable poison pill. The terrorist takeover of nuclear reactors, worldwide, goes into action; an ultimatum is issued to world governments; and the first climax takes place in a colossal cargo plane over the Atlantic, followed by an anticlimax at the castle. When last seen Murik is charred by a rocket bullet shot by James, who then takes Lavender—now the vastly wealthy inheritor Lady Murik—on a consumer splurge through the South of France. More tongue-in-cheek than Fleming, but mindless fun as usual: savory fluff for the curious and the old fans too.
Pub Date: April 20, 1981
ISBN: 1605981931
Page Count: 285
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1981
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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