Another impeccably crafted installment that will satisfy fans.
When a CIA operator’s assignment puts her life in danger, a Green Beret may be her only hope for survival in the third book in Grant’s (Catalyst, 2017, etc.) Flashpoint series.
Savannah “Savvy” James is working with the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Command at Camp Citron in Djibouti in Africa, but members of the team, especially Sgt. 1st Class Cassius Callahan, are suspicious of the spy’s activities. Green Beret Callahan, however, is exactly the partner she needs for her latest op. Jean Paul Lubanga, a government minister in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is planning a coup. Callahan, with his fluency in French and Lingala, can help her make the contacts she needs to get close to Lubanga. Callahan is attracted to James, although he doesn’t fully trust her, and he agrees to the assignment. Posing as a wealthy businessman and his mistress, Callahan and James gain an invitation to a party hosted by a Russian oligarch. Lubanga, who never travels anywhere without his laptop, is the oligarch’s guest, and James takes the opportunity to access the minister’s computer files. When she reads them, she’s shocked to discover that her mission has been compromised. And when she and Callahan fall in love, the stakes couldn’t be any higher. Grant expertly braids together action and romance in a propulsive, page-turning suspense thriller. James and Callahan, first introduced as secondary characters in 2017’s Tinderbox, are dynamic, multilayered heroes here. Grant laid the foundation for their relationship in the two previous books, and this installment deepens their attraction in scenes that underscore the erotic tension between them, despite Callahan’s initial mistrust. Grant also explores James’ background in detail, revealing her true identity and a vicious assault in her past at the hands of her trainer at the CIA. The intricate, tightly plotted story takes James and Callahan deep into the Congo as they pursue a dictator and the person responsible for blowing James’ cover. Grant deftly connects the central narrative with characters and events from previous installments while keeping the narrative lively and fast-paced.
Another impeccably crafted installment that will satisfy fans.Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-944571-15-3
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Janus Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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