An often engaging comedy about bad behavior in the absence of checks and balances.
An entitled energy-company scion struggles to hold onto his firm as it spins out of control in this satirical sequel.
In Pepper’s follow-up to A Turn in Fortune (2018), Robbie Crowe, chairman of the Crowe Power Company and a certified jerk, is standing on the precipice of personal failure as his marriage crumbles while his company’s stock price plummets. Walker B. Hope, the former chief executive whom Robbie pushed out, is now leading Staminum Energy, a longtime rival whose stock continues to rise. At a Crowe Power conference, Robbie meets Dr. Kristi Kramer, a celebrated business guru who’s poised to help Robbie put his company back on the path to greatness—but at a steep price. Meanwhile, Robbie’s estranged wife, Lindsey, is staging a coup to take over the firm before Robbie can run it into the ground. Their looming divorce will result in her becoming the company’s most powerful shareholder, which will allow her to oust the current chairman—her soon-to-be-ex spouse. This satire of industrial fortune and family money brims with wickedly funny moments and offers readers plenty of memorable characters. There are also many laugh-out-loud scenes, as when Crowe Power’s new, underwhelming CEO, Tim Padden, introduces Lester Robertson Crowe III (Robbie’s full name) as “the Turd” instead of “the Third” at a company conference. At another point, the Crowe Power board of directors clumsily attempts a video conference even though their career heydays took place in the era of fax machines and car phones. Pepper further develops characters from the previous series installment in this sequel, including Walker, who’s so charismatic and smooth that he’s able to fire someone and make him think that he quit on his own. That said, the central conflict of the novel, involving Lindsey’s takeover, gets a bit bogged down by Robbie’s constant foibles, as amusing as they are.
An often engaging comedy about bad behavior in the absence of checks and balances.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2020
ISBN: 979-8-68-404850-0
Page Count: 327
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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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