A cynical story about how, in the absence of moral courage, terror and self-preservation can also be powerful motivators.
Sympathy may be a virtue, but it can also get you into plenty of trouble.
The author, who established himself as a maker of intricate puzzles with his first novel, The Quincunx (1989), provides another in this wartime tale of a family’s efforts to protect a young girl from a vicious enemy. This is not a portrait of World War II Europe or a fictionalized account of Anne Frank’s life. Palliser is interested less in external details than in the situation’s psychological aspect, exploring the pressures building inside an ordinary family plunged into an extraordinary situation. The narrator, an unnamed bookkeeper in an unnamed European city, describes the invasion of his country and the way one of his younger daughter’s schoolmates comes to live with them. The girl’s wealthy parents, who are on a trip, have been cut off by the invasion. The narrator feels sorry for her, but his feelings are hardly altruistic. He hopes the girl’s father “would be so grateful that he would reward me with a well-paid post” when he returns. The girl, who seems appreciative at first, proves to be a master manipulator with a “mere veneer of charm” who sets the family members against each other. Though they realize they’ve made a mistake, they hesitate to send her home. They’ve already told too many lies to snooping neighbors and worry about being found out. They also cling to the hope of getting a reward even when it’s clear this isn’t going to happen. The girl belongs to an unspecified ethnic community targeted for destruction by the country’s new “puppet dictatorship,” whose sinister plan is hidden behind a seemingly beneficial agenda. Palliser gradually tightens the screws in various ways and the family keeps hiding the girl not out of any deep moral sense but because it’s too late to do anything else. Some readers may feel this plot could have been explored in a novella or short story, but Palliser manages to keep up the tension as his narrative drives to its tragic, unsettling end.
A cynical story about how, in the absence of moral courage, terror and self-preservation can also be powerful motivators.Pub Date: May 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781771838856
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Guernica Editions
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 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
Fast-moving fun and a highly creative plot.
Bloody murder spoils folks’ fun while megafauna return from extinction.
What a glorious way to spend a honeymoon: Mark and Olivia Gunnerson go backpacking through the vast Erebus Resort in the mountains of Colorado, where scientists have “de-extincted” species like the woolly mammoth and other Pleistocene megafauna. Just watch the peaceful beasts at their watering holes. Behold the giant armadillos, and the indricothere that make mammoths look like dwarfs. The scientists have removed genes for aggression in these re-creations, so humans will be safe unless they’re accidentally stepped on. And yet, someone doesn’t want the newlyweds camping there, made evident by their disappearance without a trace, save only a copious amount of blood outside their tent. Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent in Charge Frankie Cash takes the case. What happened to Mark and Olivia, and why? The park has no predators, so humans must be responsible. But where are the bodies? A doctor suggests that due to the amount of blood found, the victims may have—gasp!—been decapitated. The matter gathers national attention, and things only get worse as more people die. The late groom’s aggrieved billionaire father demands immediate answers, and of course he interferes with the investigation: “You’ll see me now, you son of a bitch, and tell me what the fuck you’re doing to find my son!” And speaking of F-bombs, surely it is possible to write a thriller with fewer—maybe use one or two to establish a character and then move on to more creative language? Anyway, the investigators are doing a lot. The action seldom lets up, and readers will feel the mounting tension and excitement. The setting itself is a scientific wonder, and it must tie into the murders somehow. Meanwhile, Hollywood is filming an action movie in the park, and the pièce de résistance will be the spectacular explosion of a train. But wouldn’t you know, Preston has other plans. Imagine Jurassic Park with the timeline brought forward to the Pleistocene, and you have the Erebus Resort. Science, imagination, storytelling, and action are all here.
Fast-moving fun and a highly creative plot.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780765317704
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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