by Martin Fletcher ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 6, 2015
A fast-paced thriller that depicts the life-or-death realities of war correspondents.
Award-winning NBC News special correspondent Fletcher (Jacob’s Oath, 2013, etc.) returns with an action-packed thriller where love and honor save the day.
American journalist Tom Layne may have trained for combat and learned how to stay alive in practice drills, but real-life capture was never on his agenda. While covering the wars in Bosnia and Serbia, Layne is captured and, after his release, falls prey to post-traumatic stress disorder. More than a decade later, a reinvigorated Layne returns to the Balkans on a documentary film project. His mission is to expose the war criminal responsible for destroying innocent lives—and Layne’s once-promising love affair with a woman caught in the crossfire. Fletcher’s experience as a reporter adds authenticity to the fictional pursuit of Ratko Mladic, the criminal wanted for genocide by many but hunted by few (and who in real life was arrested in 2011). Mladic is in hiding and under protection from Serbian fighters. Layne’s documentary, however, opens the door for those who are willing to talk and lead the journalist in the right direction. His struggle is not merely physical nor even strictly political. Layne faces an internal fight as he battles terrible dreams and flashbacks to the nightmare that happened years earlier. This is where Fletcher’s best writing comes under the spotlight. While the novel avoids traditional chapter breaks, Layne’s journey is mirrored in sections that project action, passion, defeat, confusion, and triumph. On the surface, Layne exudes confidence and self-control in his pursuit of redemption. In his dreams and in quiet romantic moments, however, he lets his guard down, and his vulnerability demonstrates as much inner conviction as he projects on the outside. Fletcher is masterful at portraying realistic combat and showcasing the survival skills of working journalists.
A fast-paced thriller that depicts the life-or-death realities of war correspondents.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-07002-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
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
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018
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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