All risks mortality : a novel / by Peter Cunningham.
Record details
- ISBN: 0316164607
- Physical Description: 284 p. ; 25 cm.
- Edition: 1st U.S. ed.
- Publisher: Boston : Little, Brown, c1988.
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Bibliomation.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Silas Bronson Library - Waterbury | FIC CUNNINGHAM, P (Text) | 34005038475298 | Adult Fiction | Available | - |
Library Journal Review
All Risks Mortality
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
This timely thriller has more than an interesting title. Ostensibly about an insurance claim, it concerns ego, money, nuclear energy, and the Middle East. In the course of the nicely written novel, Cunningham develops some interesting characters. The insurance claim relates to a fabulous race horse who dies of cancer. Concerned about an investment of this magnitude, insurance investigator Matt Blaney eventually turns up the horse's rotting corpse. From tissue samples he learns that the horse was poisoned with radium. Blaney begins to unpeel the layers of a complicated plot that eventually leads him to Jerusalem, where he meets Dr. Shenlavi, a nuclear physicist who believes he will only see his remaining child if he obeys terrorist instructions. Blaney manages to save the day. Though the plot is improbable, it's easy to suspend disbelief. If you like political thrillers, this is for you.Louise A. Merriam, L.E. Phillips Memorial P.L., Eau Claire, Wis. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Review
All Risks Mortality
Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Any of the elements of this thrillerblending dirty financial dealings, massive insurance fraud, the grisly trail of an ex-Nazi and the threat of nuclear annihilation in Israelwould be enough to power an entire book. It's a shame, therefore, that these potent plot lines converge in a single, confusing novel that drags its heels right up to the unexpectedly hair-raising finale. After winning the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, the great racehorse Cornucopia is put out to stud by the syndicate that owns it. When the horse dies suddenly, no one seems more upset than European construction magnate Carlo Galatti, who stands to gain $200 million in insurance money. Then Matt Blaney, a partner in a small insurance firm, undertakes a dangerous international investigation that links Galatti to more than one vicious crime. Closing in on the man from another angle are two agents from Israel's secret service. Cunningham excels in the emotional scenes connecting Galatti and an unbalanced Israeli physicist in possession of missing plutonium, but otherwise he finds it hard to breathe life into the stock characters and overly glib situations that fill the remainder of the book. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
All Risks Mortality
Kirkus Reviews
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
As in his first novel (Noble Lord, 1986, by ""Peter Lauder""), here Cunningham delivers a complex, sinewy thriller in which terrorist conspiracy--this time, nuclear--links into the world of Thoroughbred horse racing. When the world's most heavily insured racehorse, Cornucopia, dies of cancer, Manhattan insurance adjuster Matt Blaney flies to France to investigate. Can he save his partner's one-million share of the payout by proving negligence or foul play? That the horse died an unnatural death seems likely when a pretty groom at Cornucopia's stable is clobbered right after Matt dines with her; it's certain when Matt discovers an injection mark on the horse's corpse. Back in the US, Matt survives a machine-gun attack and accuses Barbara Galatti--disenchanted wife of the billionaire owner of Cornucopia--of complicity in the nag's death. Meanwhile, three parallel plotlines evolve: Galatti's bank calls for payback of a massive loan, leading to the murder of one banker and the sexual blackmailing of a second; an Israeli nuclear scientist, adopted son of Galatti, is extorted into assembling a homemade plutonium bomb; and an Israeli agent tails Galatti. Spiralling one around the other, the plots slowly converge as it's revealed that Galatti is a former top Nazi who, in order to avoid financial ruin, has not only killed the horse for the insurance but has agreed to engineer the nuking of Israel's Knesset for a whopping one-billion payoff from Arab powers. Over the corpse of Mrs. Galatti--killed on her husband's orders for fear of her telling all--Matt and the Israeli agent cross paths; they join forces in a sprinting climax that has them tracking down the scientist, only seconds away from turning Jerusalem to dust. With lovely clockwork plotting but low emotional impact, this kaleidoscopic, fitfully suspenseful thriller is by no means sleepy-time reading but demands--and, for its brilliant mechanism, warrants--hawk's-eye perusal. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.