Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 1, 1990 TAG: 9004010255
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Valerie Penn is, at this novel's beginning, a wealthy and beautiful woman whose talent as a classical pianist could have promised her a magnificent career if she hadn't chosen marriage to international banker Victor Penn instead.
En route to the airport to meet Victor's corporate jet, she hears radio news of an air crash in South America. For Valerie, the announcement spells disaster as further reports indicate the loss of all on board, including Victor. She finds herself ill-prepared to raise her twin children in the sudden poverty that Victor's loss and his family's animosity to her create.
Exciting as this promises to be, the introductory situation remains well within the predictable margins of many modern novels. What Barbara Wilkins, former Los Angeles bureau chief of People magazine, has created for Valerie and her friends, however, ventures far from predictions into a bizarre world of vice, lost inheritances, mysterious hostilities and murder.
For the most part, Wilkins' plot succeeds and moves along smoothly. A certain shallowness in her characters detracts, along with the Penn family wealth and powerful connections, which lean toward excess. But despite its drawbacks, this is a fast-paced and exciting debut.
- HARRIET LITTLE\ The Day Before Midnight By Stephen Hunter. Bantam. $4.95 (paper).
This novel was reviewed here when it was published in hardback last year. But it's such a good suspense novel that it deserves another mention now that it's out in paper.
Author Stephen Hunter's premise is a nuclear nightmare. A heavily armed group breaks into and captures a Peacekeeper missile silo in the Maryland mountains. Initially they make no demands; their goal appears to be simply World War III. They want to launch the multiple-warhead missile at the Soviet Union. A lucky break keeps them from doing it immediately, but the clock is ticking as the government tries to stop them and the "Aggressor Force" tries to find one final key.
Hunter has filled the novel with multidimensional interesting characters. He's done his homework, too; many of the details have the unmistakable ring of accuracy. And at its core, the novel has the bizarre Strangelovian logic of nuclear weapons. That's a potent mixture for a suspense novel; thoroughly believable and human characters caught up in a fantastic, yet equally believable situation. The apparent breakout of world peace notwithstanding, "The Day Before Midnight" is a compelling thriller. Memorable and highly recommended.
- MIKE MAYO Book page editor
by CNB