A thriller with estimable lead characters and engrossing villains that make up for an occasionally muddled plot.
Espionage agencies again call upon a forensic dentist’s expertise when it appears that Adolf Hitler may have fathered two sons in Woods-Frankel’s (False Impressions, 2012) second book in his historical mystery series.
In 1992, Dr. Steve Landau, in Israel to give a lecture at the Mossad Forensic Institute, is enjoying vacation time with his girlfriend, forensic psychologist Nita Lazar. But his plans change when CIA agent Herb Robinson and KGB Col. Mischa Kovalyov tell him that they need his help. They need him to confirm recent intel that the buried body of Hitler isn’t actually the dictator at all. Steve’s forensic dental skills validate the suspicion, and additional information suggests that the late Soviet leader Josef Stalin, who was sterile, may have used Hitler’s semen to impregnate two women, who each had a son. With the FBI’s assistance, Steve and his colleagues track down one of the sons in America, a wealthy, dangerous arms dealer. This mystery/thriller revels in its alternative history, spending a large part of the book in a flashback focusing on Hitler at the end of World War II. Later, the story moves into the 1960s to focus on his sons, Josif and Iliyich, who take notably different paths in life. Initially, this section doesn’t move much beyond what Steve, Nita and Herb have already learned, but it’s enthralling nonetheless. Steve and Nita are engaging protagonists, adept with weapons and close-quarters combat, and they stubbornly refuse to abandon the investigation. But that investigation can be confusing at times; for example, it’s initially unclear why the search for Josif is so urgent, although it becomes clearer when they realize he may be planning an attack on the United States. The plot also sometimes relies on coincidence, such as the brothers’ convenient reunion in America. However, Woods-Frankel keeps the tension high by taking his heroes through a gunfight, a kidnapping, and a tragic death or two.
A thriller with estimable lead characters and engrossing villains that make up for an occasionally muddled plot.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-1910105092
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Netherworld Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2014
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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