A clever, spirited story with a brainy, nimble heroine at the helm.
A software engineer suspects the company overseeing mandatory corporate training harbors a nefarious agenda in this techno-thriller.
From the beginning, Deb Bollinger refuses to take part in Blackquest 40, the training exercise for Codewise Solutions in San Francisco. She’s far too busy, having just launched her app, Carebnb, which she designed to help homeless individuals locate the nearest available “host bed.” It’s a personal project for Deb, as she spent a homeless childhood with her mother, who eventually developed schizophrenia. But Deb isn’t able to verify Carebnb’s functionality when Elite Development, which is running Blackquest 40, blocks data and cellphone traffic. She quickly learns how serious Elite is about ensuring that everyone stays for the entirety of the exercise’s 40-hour duration. When Deb tries leaving the building, an Elite employee physically prevents her from departing. Deb is convinced her mentor, Codewise CEO Susan Wright, the person who hired her, will oppose Elite’s paramilitary techniques. Unfortunately, Susan is currently out of the country on business. On site is Carter Kotanchek, CFO and company co-founder (with Susan and Paul Gribbe), who believes Elite’s certification of Codewise will drum up much-needed revenue. But Deb has other plans: She looks for a way to bypass Elite’s cyberobstructions. But with few friends at Codewise, she’s largely on her own. Surprisingly, she finds indications that Elite is not only deceitful, but also considerably more dangerous than she initially surmised. Rather than searching for escape, Deb opts for sticking around to foil whatever sinister scheme Elite is cooking up. Many readers will spot resemblances between this book and the popular 1988 action film Die Hard. Deb, for one, is a loner in a building filled with workers who are essentially hostages, and she stealthily crawls around HVAC ducts. But Bond’s (The Winner Maker, 2018) twisty tale ultimately takes on a life of its own, especially as Deb gets closer to learning what exactly Elite is after. The novel is jampacked with coding jargon, most of which will make little or no sense to novices. Nevertheless, the tale is coherent, as it’s clear, for example, that Elite wants Codewise employees to build software on a very strict deadline. Coupled with the author’s intelligent prose is his visual storytelling: Elite employees wear yellow shirts, providing Deb (and readers) with a bright and simple way to identify villains. As a protagonist, Deb is resourceful and physically capable (in defiance of her “hundred-odd pounds”), though her loner status seems self-imposed. But she’s the first to acknowledge her flaws, and she reluctantly warms up to someone who becomes an unlikely ally. At the same time, Deb’s first-person narration is brisk, gleefully snarky, and filled with indelible metaphors. “The relief that sweeps through me is water through a burning home,” she muses, while later observing that a particular “noise is tin cans off the back of a Just Married car.” There are several plot turns throughout the tale; readers will likely guess one well before it happens, but others are less predictable.
A clever, spirited story with a brainy, nimble heroine at the helm.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73225-522-7
Page Count: 348
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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