Filled with enough twists to make a roulette wheel dizzy.
In Brooks’ (Pressure Points, 2013, etc.) thriller, Wolfgang Schmitt’s latest undercover gig for the FBI puts him at a Las Vegas hotel-casino to bring down mobsters.
Doing a covert assignment for the FBI made a millionaire out of Wolfgang, a former model. But when his offshore account suddenly disappears, it’s clear that the feds want his attention to coerce him into going undercover again. Wolf poses as a hit man offering his services to Lynn Valentine to off her hubby, Phillip. Feds can then charge her with conspiracy and subsequently squeeze her for info on the mob-tied casino, Xanadu, that the Valentines run. Wolf is under the guise of being Lynn’s personal trainer, but a wary Phillip and his muscle-bound crony let Wolf know he isn’t trusted. Speaking of trust: Wolf’s old FBI contact, Sherlock, has him secretly keeping an eye on the rogue agents who gave Wolf his current operation. Things only get worse (and more confusing) when cops arrest Wolf for murder. Brooks’ novel opens as a straightforward spy story but gradually turns into a gleefully convoluted tale. FBI agent Renee, for example, is dubious from the start: she’d been assessing (and dating) Wolf as a woman named Carolyn and joins him in Vegas as Lynn’s assistant Nicole (her real name isn’t known). By the time Wolf loses contact with Sherlock, he’s dealing with more bodies and a couple of kidnappings and making so many deals with shady people that readers’ heads are likely to spin. Yet the story is surprisingly easy to follow since Brooks keeps the numerous characters and aliases in line. And while the final explanation of Xanadu’s nefarious affairs may not be entirely convincing, the across-the-board resolution doesn’t leave anything up in the air. Wolf’s perpetual cynicism is solid comic relief, even when his sharp tongue and rash attitude in the company of various thugs come at the expense of his safety, as when Phillip’s goons make sure Wolf is well-acquainted with a few weightlifting plates. But his faults help him stand out. Unlike James Bond, Wolf walks away from a blackjack table with nothing but sardonic remarks for the dealer.
Filled with enough twists to make a roulette wheel dizzy.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-1620454176
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Turner
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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