Following fast on the heels of 1995's Relic—the scariest thriller ever set in the American Museum of Natural History— dynamic duo Douglas and Child once again demonstrate their mastery of the genre, this time hopping the killer-virus bandwagon to evoke plenty of healthy bioparanoia. Meet Guy Carson, an Ivy-trained cowboy biologist (he's kin to Kit) who's been relocated from New Mexico to New Jersey, there to drudge through species-altering genetic research for GeneDyne, a vast biomedical conglomerate presided over by Brent Scopes, the authors' version of geek-tycoon Bill Gates. Scopes has sequestered a band of modern-day Trinity Project scientists at Mount Dragon, in the middle of the New Mexico desert, in an attempt to concoct a cure for the flu. When one of Scopes's team goes off the deep end, he plucks Carson from his employee pool, and the melancholy genius-wrangler leaps at the opportunity to return to his ancestral lands. Meanwhile, an uppity Harvard geneticist and former pal of Scopes's, Charles Levine, has dedicated his considerable chutzpa to proving that GeneDyne is out to alter irrevocably the evolutionary path of humankind. Carson dives into his new assignment, but it isn't long before his optimism falters: Solving the influenza-immunity problem won't be a cinch, as it turns out, and then a team member is accidentally infected with the deadly superflu, leading to an exquisite exploding-brain scene. Something's rotten at Mount Dragon, and Carson's suspicions are only compounded by the appearance of a nebbishy government investigator, a paranoid chief of security, and a Mexican-American lab assistant who winds up abetting Carson's eventual flight from a potential Andromeda Strain scenario. For additional nerdy pyrotechnics, don't skip Levine's cyberspace showdown with Scopes. Didactic at times, but, still, the thrillfest runs full-force to (almost) the very last page. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-86042-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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