This is standard Clancy fare: If you liked the last one, you’ll like this one. And the next one.
A failed missile test launches the 21st Op-Center adventure created by Clancy and continued by Rovin.
The Chinese test a new Qi-19 hypersonic missile that blows up on the launchpad, and someone must be blamed and pay a heavy price. Gen. Zhou Chang unfairly blames chief aeronautical engineer Dr. Yang Dàyóu and orders him to confess to either carelessness or treason. So Yang is imprisoned and could be executed for an error that the general made. American intelligence gets wind of the failure, and the new president, John Wright, understandably wants to know what happened. He calls in Chase Williams, director of the National Crisis Management Center, aka the Op-Center. Wright wants Williams to assign the Black Wasp team’s Lt. Grace Lee on a solo mission to find out what went wrong with the launch, what the missile’s payload was, and what happened to Yang. Lee is an all-American patriot with Chinese immigrant parents. She can blend right into the Chinese countryside, has a “flair for independent action,” and can kill with anything she can get her hands on. There’s a long buildup to more action as readers learn more about the left-of-center administration and its lack of gravitas. Wright is a “left-of-center superstar [replacing] a right-of-center warhorse,” the more Clancy-ish and therefore sensible President Midkiff. The well-meaning but inexperienced Wright doesn’t ask good questions, the chief of staff is out to get Williams fired, and a couple of staff come across as lightweight flunkies from Hollywood. But Lee is the star of this show as she navigates problems with considerable skill and no gratuitous violence. The plot and characters are what fans will expect, though the Mongolian woman pilot might come as a surprise. The ending suggests unfinished business, so the storyline may continue into another book. The best line: “The Ilyushin Il-76 did not so much land as stop flying.”
This is standard Clancy fare: If you liked the last one, you’ll like this one. And the next one.Pub Date: May 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-2508-6139-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
A touching story of love and grief ends in an epic battle of good versus evil.
Roberts’ latest may move you to tears, or joy, or dread, or all three.
Every summer, John and Cora Fox visit Cora’s mother, Lucy Lannigan, in Redbud Hollow, Kentucky, leaving their children, 12-year-old Thea and 10-year-old Rem, for a two-week taste of heaven. The children love Grammie Lucy far more than John’s snooty family, which looks down on Cora. Lucy, a healer with deep Appalachian roots, loves animals, cooks the best meals, plays musical instruments, and makes soap and candles for her thriving business. Thea—who’s inherited the psychic abilities passed down through the women of Lucy’s family—has vivid magical dreams, one of which becomes a living nightmare when a psychopath robs and murders John and Cora as Thea watches helplessly. Thea’s description of the killer and her ability to see him in real time help the skeptical police catch Ray Riggs, who goes to prison for life. Although Thea and Rem go on to have a wonderful childhood with Grammie, Thea constantly wages a mental battle with Riggs, who tries to use his own psychic abilities to get into her mind. Over the years, Thea uses her imagination to become a game designer while the more business-minded Rem helps manage her career. Thea eventually builds a house near Lucy, where a newly arrived neighbor is her teen crush, singer-songwriter Tyler Brennan. Tyler has his own issues and is protective of his young son but slowly builds a loving relationship with Thea, whose silence about her abilities leads to a devastating misunderstanding. At first Thea tries to keep Riggs locked out of her mind. As her powers grow, she torments him. Finally, she realizes that she must win this battle and destroy him if she’s ever to have peace.
A touching story of love and grief ends in an epic battle of good versus evil.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781250289698
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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