An exciting P.I. tale with intriguing thriller elements.
In Kageyama’s historical thriller, a Japanese American detective confronts government secrecy and the dangerous San Francisco underworld while investigating a murder.
This fast-paced sequel to Kageyama’s Hunters Point (2023) takes readers back to 1959 San Francisco, where private eye Katsuhiro “Kats” Takemoto is investigating the brutal killing of Mai Su Han, a Chinese American sex worker. It turns out that the murder is connected to a secret Cold War government program called Midnight Climax, in which CIA agents test psychedelic drugs, including LSD and mescaline, on unwitting subjects. During the tests, women entice male subjects into special safe houses, where agents film them behind one-way glass; the men are given drug-laced drinks, and the effects are carefully monitored and analyzed. This time, government agents mistakenly lured an extremely dangerous ex-soldier, Steven Epps, into their web—and his violent reaction left Mai and a CIA agent dead. Now, an unstable murderer is loose in the city: “He was already a trained killer,” says the key official in charge of the project. “The drugs made him stronger, faster and more unpredictable than anyone else would believe.” Soon, Kats finds out that Lin Tai Lo, the leader of the Hop Sing Tong and a powerful force in San Francisco’s criminal world, is also determined to find Epps. He’s related to the dead girl and believes that a rival Tong may be behind her murder. Kats, along with his amateur sleuth girlfriend Molly Hayes, his close friend Shigeyoshi “Shig” Murao, and soon-to-be-famous real-life author Ken Kesey, scour the city’s underworld of clubs, bars, and hideouts. This tightly written novel will appeal to those who enjoy tales of Cold War–era intrigue, San Francisco history, and 20th-century Asian American cultural life. Readers are quickly drawn into the story as the author successfully moves back and forth between the powerful forces determined to cover up the secret drug program and the intrepid but vulnerable team of investigators drawing closer to the truth. Kats, Molly, and Shig are all well developed and likable, and their interactions feel authentic and true to the story’s historical setting.
An exciting P.I. tale with intriguing thriller elements.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2024
ISBN: 978-1940300818
Page Count: 372
Publisher: St. Petersburg Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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