A dogged thriller with political bite.
A world of hurt envelopes veteran war photographer Joseph “Fearless” Nightingale and a brutalized young Cambodian woman, Song, as both seek to overcome tragedy.
It’s the late 1990s. Fearless, a Black Londoner who passes for white, has flown to Cambodia to deal with ghosts. He’s reeling from the murder of his father, a revolutionary-minded professor, who was shot at the end of a visit with Pol Pot, and from the death of Fearless’ romantic partner and unborn child in a car crash. Song, 18, a product of poverty and negligence, has been enslaved by a sadistic brute in an apartment from which she has not been allowed to step outside for three years. Shocked to learn that her twin sister, Sovanna, from whom she was separated years ago, is alive and being held in a nearby building, Song stages an escape and attempts to rescue her, armed with Molotov cocktails—only to have her sister vanish behind the flames. Having had his self-pity doused and his empathy awakened by his brief encounters with the courageous Song, Fearless finds her and joins her in a search for Sovanna that takes them through a criminal underground that springs bad surprises. A Russian expatriate who Fearless thought was a friend turns out to be a ruthless arms trader who was involved in the horrific abuse and murder of trafficked children. Herat recalls Robert Stone with his themes of morality, redemption, and uncrossable cultural boundaries. The dizzying narrative, which for long stretches circles around basic plot elements, sometimes loses focus. But in capturing a place and state of mind in which corruption is viewed as “the only breach against chaos,” the London-based, Sri Lanka–rooted author has given us a book that won’t be easy to forget.
A dogged thriller with political bite.Pub Date: June 11, 2024
ISBN: 9781632063670
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Restless Books
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
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
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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