Zut! The French are the villains in this new futurotechnothriller by Navy veteran and military analyst Bond (Vortex, 1991; Red Phoenix, 1989)—who continues to write battle scenes good enough to keep the old disbelief suspended in a closet somewhere. The setup this time is an economic and military collaboration between France and Germany sometime after the defeat of President Clinton. The Common Market has given way to an unpleasant and unsatisfactory master-slave relationship between the two rich countries and still-poor Eastern Europe, as well as some unhealthy codependency with the Benelux countries and Scandinavia. Then France decides to ship its unwelcome guest workers off to Hungary to replace Hungarian workers in French-owned factories and at the same time sews up a dirty deal with the Germans to take over the continent. War becomes inevitable, and Poland, Slovakia, and the Czechs alone have the nerve to resist. But who cares? Their only friends are the Americans, best known for their dithering and political cowardice. Right? Wrong! America cares. With the help of rich industrialist Ross Huntington III, the President comes up with a tough plan to help those plucky countries hang on and, at the same time, punish the French for their decades of rudeness to tourists. Since France and Germany are old NATO powers, the battle that breaks out pits American-designed weapons and tactics against American-designed weapons and tactics. The Germans are gutsy and well organized, the French arrogant and craven. Trouble is expected from the Russians, whose president has been locked up by a reactionary general. Heroics are provided by, among others, a patriotic Hungarian cop, a Polish-American flyboy, a lovely American commercial analyst, a suave Russian colonel, and a former East German officer. Before everything is sorted out, the French will reach for their nuclear weapons. Rattles along at a nice pace. Gadgetry is subordinated to tactics, and that's to the good. Plenty of tank action for the WW II fans.
Pub Date: June 11, 1993
ISBN: 0-446-51567-1
Page Count: 608
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1993
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
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
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