Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Winner of an Edgar for his debut in Chiefs, basis of a six-hour TV series, Woods presents another potential bestseller, vibrating with tensions created by covert operations in the CIA and the KGB. The heroine is Kate Rule, member of the team at Langley Field assigned to keep tabs on Soviet moves. Emulating male machismo, Rule grows impatient with her colleagues' caution and flies to Europe, on the trail of a Russian agent who has recently disappeared. The narrative switches alternately between fraught events in Russia and America, as Rule's suspect masterminds an invasion of Sweden. The story is packed with horrors and close calls, up to and including the demand for the Swedish government to surrender at the threat of a blast from a nuclear submarine. All the way, Rule and her few allies are caught in seemingly inescapable death traps set by traitors, trusted officials in Sweden and in Washington. An outsized cast of well-defined characters, nonstop action and clearly rendered locales make the novel a genuine if not entirely credible thriller. Reader's Digest Condensed Books selection. February 24 (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Scanning satellite photos, Katharine Rule, chief watcher of the Soviet scene for the CIA, spots a secret KGB training base, code-named Malibu, on the Baltic in Latvia. KGB General Viktor Majorov runs Malibu and is the mastermind behind a Soviet plot to take over Sweden. As Majorov races to set his plan in motion, Rule battles bungling CIA bosses to make her case before the Russians launch their invasion. Woods is a master storyteller who has created one of the very best spy thrillers this reviewer has seen. He has researched his subjects thoroughly: the book is as convincing as it is exciting. The action begins at full throttle and doesn't let up until the very end. Enthusiastically recommended for every popular fiction collection. Brian Alley, Sangamon State Univ. Lib., Springfield, Ill. Woolf, Virginia. The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf. HBJ. 1986. c.313p. ed. by Susan Dick. $16.95. f Woolf's short stories originally appeared in various magazines and anthologies, often sloppily or intrusively edited. The 45 texts collected here were carefully prepared by Susan Dick after comparison of all surviving manuscript and printed versions; 17 have never before been published, assuring this volume an important place in the Woolf canon. The earliest pieces date from 1906 and the last were in progress when Woolf drowned herself in 1941. Taken together, they show the evolution of Woolf's experimental methods and the origin of some of the major themes in her novels. Dick's meticulous but unobtrusive editing gives us for the first time a reliable text for some of Woolf's best writing. Michael Edmonds, State Historical Soc. of Wisconsin, Madison (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Woods (Chiefs, 1981) moves into the international suspense field with this lumbering and implausible Ludlumesque thriller. The Soviets are preparing to invade Sweden--yes, Sweden--and only one person in the entire world can stop them: Kate Rule, a divorc‚e working for the CIA. Rule is intelligent, attractive and deadly, right down to her Quantico attack training, her Georgetown address and her BMW 3201. The Soviets, she discovers, are going to invade Sweden with their SPETSNAZ super-commando troops under the command of KGB Colonel Majorov, who behaves like a Nazi in a WW II thriller most of the time. The reason for all this? A misguided CIA disinformation campaign to convince Moscow that Sweden was about to join NATO and, as Soviet intelligence analyst Rule puts it: "". . .because they can get away with it."" Enter Rule's boyfriend, Will Lee, a senatorial aide, who just happens to be piloting a sailboat across the Baltic at the same time as the Soviet invasion is being prepared. Lee also happens to run the sailboat aground at the SPETSNAZ training school on the coast of Latvia, where he also happens to collect an important stowaway, an Italian computer expert named Appicella, who works for the Soviets and who just happens to know the whole story of the invasion. There's also a small atomic bomb in the waters off Stockholm and a Soviet mole at CIA headquarters, but neither one has any measurable effect on the predictable outcome. The Swedes are alerted in the nick of time, the Soviets are thwarted in their globe-conquering aspirations, Rule triumphs, and her boyfriend decides to become a US Senator. And the reader is left with a numbing sense of d‚j... vu. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
