A page-turner illustrating the horrifying consequences of becoming embroiled in the American legal system, slowed by far too...
An upper-middle-class Jewish family is thrown into turmoil when a father is accused of abetting terrorism.
Things couldn’t be more idyllic for the Samuels clan of Cambridge, Mass. Abigail is exulting in the pleasurable planning of a gala engagement party for daughter Kayla and future son-in-law Seth, two Harvard Law students with bright futures. But why is the caterer giving her the fish-eye? The news has hit the Internet: Suddenly the whole world knows that Abigail’s husband, Adam, a prominent CPA, has just been led, in handcuffs, from his Boston office by the FBI. The charge arose from the fact that Adam had steered some high-profile clients, including a former ghetto dweller turned celebrity entrepreneur, toward a hedge fund that, unbeknownst to Adam despite due diligence, financed terrorist operations. Seth, a controlling sort who pressures Kayla into straightening her hair and wearing pinstripes in order to better her chances with law-firm recruiters, insists that she distance herself from her father to avoid tainting her career prospects. Adam’s formerly close friends and even his rabbi shun him. On bail, awaiting trial and facing the loss of his hard-won reputation and prosperity, Adam grows increasingly despondent and rebuffs Abigail’s efforts to comfort him. Kayla impulsively hops a plane to Israel, and winds up on an archeological dig near the Dead Sea. There, amid a group of free spirits called the Talmidim, she lives off the land and studies with a charismatic guru, Rav Natan. She’s drawn to Daniel, an Israeli surgeon whose family was killed by a suicide bomber. Ironically, Daniel, with his contacts in Israeli army intelligence, may be the Samuels family’s salvation. Adam, alarmed by Kayla’s defection from the mainstream, sends both Abigail and Seth after her. Both will then experience epiphanies of their own.
A page-turner illustrating the horrifying consequences of becoming embroiled in the American legal system, slowed by far too many weighty passages of authorial comment about the sad state of morals today.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-57017-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2010
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
Deep schmaltz in the Bible Belt.
Christian-fiction writer Martin (The Dead Don’t Dance, not reviewed) chronicles the personal tragedy of a Georgia heart surgeon.
Five years ago in Atlanta, Reese could not save his beloved wife Emma from heart failure, even though the Harvard-trained surgeon became a physician so that he could find a way to fix his childhood sweetheart’s congenitally faulty ticker. He renounced practicing medicine after her death and now lives in quiet anonymity as a boat mechanic on Lake Burton. Across the lake is Emma’s brother Charlie, who was rendered blind on the same desperate night that Reese fought to revive his wife on their kitchen floor. When Reese helps save the life of a seven-year-old local girl named Annie, who turns out to have irreparable heart damage, he is compassionately drawn into her case. He also grows close to Annie’s attractive Aunt Cindy and gradually comes to recognize that the family needs his expertise as a transplant surgeon. Martin displays some impressive knowledge about medical practice and the workings of the heart, but his Christian message is not exactly subtle. “If anything in this universe reflects the fingerprint of God, it is the human heart,” Reese notes of his medical studies. Emma’s letters (kept in a bank vault) quote Bible verse; Charlie elucidates stories of Jesus’ miracles for young Annie; even the napkins at the local bar, The Well, carry passages from the Gospel of John for the benefit of the biker clientele. Moreover, Martin relentlessly hammers home his sentimentality with nature-specific metaphors involving mating cardinals and crying crickets. (Annie sells crickets as well as lemonade to raise money for her heart surgery.) Reese’s habitual muttering of worldly slogans from Milton and Shakespeare (“I am ashes where once I was fire”) doesn’t much cut the cloying piety, and an over-the-top surgical save leaves the reader feeling positively bruised.
Deep schmaltz in the Bible Belt.Pub Date: April 4, 2006
ISBN: 1-5955-4054-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: WestBow/Thomas Nelson
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006
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