Word: rife
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...fast-paced novel rife with action and intrigue, most readers will forgive Follett his contrivances and lapses in characterization. So this author does not exactly re-invent the genre within which he works. One does not expect Raymond Chandler when picking up Follett. And anyway, Chandler's plots are a whole lot harder to follow...
These are not the only credibility gaps. Henry & Clare is rife with errors, undocumented innuendo, non sequiturs and contradictions. Martin shows little understanding of how the Luce organization worked; the portraits of his principals are caricature-crude, especially in the case of Clare. In biography even more than architecture, God is in the details. By that standard, Henry & Clare deserves the scathing verdict that Luce often penciled on drafts of unsatisfactory stories: "Needs work...
...band that has just released its U.S. debut disk Viva Dead Ponies. According to lead singer Cathal Coughlan, the group hopes to capture rock's old outlaw image by overthrowing the sugarcoated commercialism prevalent on the pop charts today. To promote that "mission," the album dissects a British society rife with "squalid poverty where the poor prey on the even poorer," says Coughlan. Included on the album are the songs Ceausescu Flashback; Look What I Stole for Us, Darling; and More Smack, Vicar...
...vulnerability that she took such pains to conceal . . ." Len Deighton is at it again, this time in the treacherous jungles of South America. Throughout MAMista (HarperCollins; 410 pages; $21.95), guerrillas attempt to seize control of Spanish Guiana, currently under the thumb of cryptofascist goons. The covert war is rife with betrayal, and ultimately no one is pure in Deighton's 17th spy novel. Intrigues misfire; disease kills more effectively than bullets; and corruption becomes the order of the day. Even so, the characters are shrewdly delineated, and the suspense continues until the final paragraph. Moral ambiguity used to be called...
...everyone shares such scruples. Rap is rife with riffs sampled from other musicians without their consent, most notably James Brown. (The Godfather of Soul says he has counted 134 examples.) Producer-performer Lenny Kravitz borrowed a drum track from the rap group Public Enemy for the thrusting beat of Madonna's hit Justify My Love...