Reviews for Under the Radar (Sisterhood Series #13)

The average rating for Under the Radar (Sisterhood Series #13) based on 2 reviews is 1.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-11-09 00:00:00 David Bloom Thirteenth in the Sisterhood vengeance-suspense series based on a group of women seeking justice for those who can't find it in the existing legal system. This particular story takes part mostly in Utah. My Take This story is a perfect example of how stupid the women are! They have been going on forever and ever about how they don't need no steenking men and, in this story, when Charles takes off, they practically blackmail the guy into giving up his computer password because...listen up...they can't accomplish this next mission without...pay attention...Charles' contacts. Men. That's another thing. Charles has a family crisis, admittedly, a family he didn't know existed, but still, a crisis. He's a nice guy. So how do the women react? You know, the women whom Charles has supported in their crises for years now??? They shit all over the poor guy. Oh no. Please. Please, don't tell me that Charles Martin invented the title, "Her Royal Majesty"… Really? I didn't know one couldn't get a cup of coffee in England. I mean, I do enjoy the fact that tea used to be automatically served up in England the way servers automatically assume here in America that you drink coffee. But my ex-, an Englishman with an addiction to coffee, never had any trouble getting coffee. And the last time I was in England, it was a lot harder to find a cup of tea. Oh, yeah. Right. Myra is threatening Charles with how her people will whip his people's ass. What a child she is! A bitchy, tantrum-throwing child. If Charles is smart, he'll never go back to her. The entire story is one dithering, unplanned runaround after another. Thank god for one of Charles' MEN who is able to pull transportation together, handle the bad guys, and blow up the compound because it sure wouldn't have happened with this bunch of dithering idiots in charge! There's the scene where the director of the FBI, Harry, Joe, and Jack have two sheriff deputies and the sheriff tied up and the sisters come out to harass the prisoners. Damn good thing they're planning on "doing away" with them or it just might leak out about the FBI's collusion with fugitives…! Although, I'm still trying to figure out why it's so important to blow the compound up. The ladies are having the HOE men sign everything else over to them so why not simply have them sign this land over and keep the buildings?? I don't get it. I understand that it would be best to get the victims away from the place and the town that supported their actions, but they could have sold the place as is and used the money to help the victims. That's it?? That's the brilliant plan with the pumpkins…??? Guess Michaels and her advisers ran out of wine. Michaels makes me nuts. She just throws these scenarios out here and expects that they'll make sense. I swear, she must get together with some friends and get really drunk. Everyone then makes a suggestion and the stupider it is, the more likely it is to get used. The Story While on a mission, former Supreme Court Justice Pearl Barnes comes across a bus of pregnant teens in a ditch with a dead driver. Once Pearl ascertains the girls' origins, she boards them onto her bus and drives off to one of her safe houses. Naturally, even though Pearl has been handling clandestine groups of women and children for years, Pearl hasn't a clue what to do with the ladies and calls upon the Sisterhood for help. Too bad for Pearl that just that night, Charles received an urgent call taking him away from the Mountain. Now Pearl is stuck with the Keystone Kops. The Characters Yup, everybody's here. Just in different ways. Charles Martin got a call from Liz about a son he never knew and takes off for England with Myra Rutledge just barely catching a ride and leaving the ladies on their own. Alexis and Joe Espinosa, one of the Post's reporters, are getting set up for a romance'looks like I was wrong when I thought a CIA operative, Chuck Dalton, from Collateral Damage was going to be with her. Lizzie Fox pulls in her new partner, Cosmo Cricket (lawyer for the Nevada Gaming Commission), to help out. Liz will be representing Marion Jennings and several other ladies who escaped from one of these cult compounds and ensuring their safety after the ladies have given their interviews as a further nail in the polygamous coffin. Former Supreme Court Justice Pearl Barnes calls in the early morning hours just after Charles and Myra leave with her own crisis and the ladies spend hours dithering over Pearl's problem like a bunch of headless chickens when a fox is raiding the coop. The one practical action they manage is to call everyone on the second team so they can stir them up. As Editor in Chief at the Washington Post, Maggie Spritzer supports the sisters with a barrage of front page articles lambasting the Heaven on Earth (HOE) polygamy cult pointing up the number of spiritual wives who are on welfare to the tune of well over half a million dollars per year, the number of grants paid by the government to them, the number of thirteen-year-old pregnant girls, and the very lavish lifestyle afforded HOE's Ermenegildo Zegna-wearing Prophet, Harold Evanrod, who drives a Bentley and their on-call doctor driving a Maybach worth over $400,000. Avery Snowden is Charles' main go-to guy who heads up the behind-the-scenes operations; he also clues the ladies in on what it takes to run such an operation. The Cover The cover is just gorgeous with it's so very peaceful, moonlit lake edged in evergreens with that corner of a dock hosting an Adirondack chair. It has absolutely NO relation to the story so at least it's consistent to the inanity. As for the title, oh puh-lease, there is practically nothing Under the Radar when it comes to the Sisterhood. A better title would have been Chaos in the Ranks or Plans 'R Not Us. Or maybe even Fashion Coordination 101, 'cause, y'know, it's so important to be coordinated when one is about to invade a religious compound.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-01-21 00:00:00 William Madden Courtesy of CK2S Kwips and Kritiques The seven women making up the Sisterhood have just returned to their mountain command center when their chief coordinator, Charles Martin, and mentor, Myra Rutledge, are called away in the middle of the night for a family emergency. Shortly after they leave, the Sisters receive a phone call from former judge Pearl Barnes who has just happened across a stranded bus full of pregnant teens. As it turns out, these girls are part of a polygamist sect. The Sisters step in to aid in rescuing the teens and plot to take down the leader of their sect in a scandal ripped from today's headlines. It will take everything they have to handle this case, especially with the head of their operation incommunicado. I liked the premise of Under the Radar and it started out in typical Sisterhood style with a little bit of fluff, several empowered females and adventure to spare. However, once the Sisterhood gets to the compound, everything falls apart. I have a whole laundry list of issues with the book, which can only be presented in atypical style for me. 1. It's camouflage!" not "speckled suits." I find it extremely hard to believe that a presumably intelligent man (a lawyer or reporter - I forget who it was in that scene) in his 30s (what I'm estimating the age) would have never heard of camouflage and not know what to call it. 2. I was highly offended by the derogatory impression given of the National Guard in Under the Radar. The characters referred to them as "pretend soldiers" who never do anything, are all overweight and women who put on makeup with a trowel. What is this… propaganda? I almost quit the book right then and there. 3. If one more character snarled or gave an evil laugh or an evil smile, I think I would have screamed! Not to mention all the "love of his (her) lifes" used throughout the novel. 4. I was appalled at the way the Sisters treated the women in the cult compound. The women in the compound have lived there for their entire lives and were subject to such severe brain washing and emotional abuse that they didn't know how to respond any other way than they did. Yet the Sisters kept calling them stupid, calling them other names, insulting them, and physically abusing the women for living the only life they knew how to live. The women in the compound truly did not know that what they were doing was wrong. That was all they'd ever known. They have never lived outside the compound so they had no way of realizing that their way of life was so horrible and what they were doing was so terribly wrong. Yes it was wrong, I don't ever condone that type of behavior. However people subject to that kind of torture would have absolutely no idea of that. To have the "heroines" treating them so abusively actually disgusted me. I don't care if the book is fiction or not. The Sisters' behavior was anything BUT heroic in the second half of the book and I was repulsed. 5. Can someone explain to me how someone who has never driven an 18-wheeler in their life would be able to climb up into the cab, with a full trailer attached and just drive? There's no way they'd be able to steer and maneuver it properly to get it where they wanted it on the first try. Impossible 6. Enough about the pumpkins already! There was absolutely no need to keep talking about the blasted pumpkins and have them as a part of the "plan." I was so sick of hearing about them that if I had read Under the Radar at Halloween time, I'd not even be able to stand seeing them in the stores I was so sick of hearing about them! I was so turned off by Under the Radar I don't know as I even want to continue in the Revenge of the Sisterhood series after this one. I'm sorry Fern Michaels but this book was so far below standard for you, it should never have been published like this! If this is the future of the series, then it is best ended right now. © Kelley A. Hartsell, March 2010. All rights reserved.