The fact-based epic of an unconquerable WW II skipper's determination to escape the surrender of Corregidorpublished to coincide with the 50th anniversary of V-J Day. The Pacific theater, 1942. As Japanese Zeroes fire round after punishing round at the tiny Philippine island, Admiral Nimitz plans a counterstrike based on his cryptographers' success in cracking the Japanese military code: Knowing that Admiral Yamamoto plans to attack Midway on Emperor Hirohito's birthday, Nimitz will lure the Japanese Navy into a trap. Taking his cue from Lt. Cmdr. John H. Morrill's 1943 memoir South from Corregidor, Gobbell unfolds the tale of Lt. Todd Ingram, who commandeers a tiny boat in the last hours of the Japanese bombardment in defiance of the order to surrender. Ingram can't afford to be taken because only he knows that Cryptographer Walter Radtke is actually an Axis spy who's learned of Nimitz's trap and intends to pass the information on to Lt. Kiyoshi Tuga as soon as he can find his way to an unattended radio. Casting off from Corregidor in pursuit of Radtke against a frightful background of din and death, Ingram steams into nonstop actionand that's just the trouble with this sturdy, cluttered novel. Gobbell (The Brutus Lie, not reviewed) wants to paint the Pacific War in precise, unsparing strokes, making every shot resound while keeping his eye on Ingram's and Radtke's high- stakes game. But he's more successful at the first endeavor than the second, and less successful still at giving his heroic characters any depth or distinguishing features. The Axis rant and rape like the Yellow Peril in a propaganda short, and poor Ingram can't ``think of a worse combination than the hideous political systems [Radtke and Tuga] represented.'' Lacking Frederick Forsyth's alchemical ability to transform the minutiae of military intrigue into high-voltage suspense, Gobbell is left with a million dramatic details that never quite catch fire.
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-13108-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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