Not the most likable protagonist but watching him confront danger may garner interest in his previous tales.
In Borelli’s (At Last Reconciled, 2013, etc.) latest thriller, a New York lawyer gets caught up in a U.S. operation to neutralize weapons-grade material hidden in Iran.
When agents from the CIA and National Security Agency show up at his law office, Niccoló Cérvantés de’Conti assumes the worst. After all, they could very well know about his occasional role as vigilante, though he was acquitted for the murder of the three men who raped and killed his daughter. It turns out that President Obama needs the services of Nick’s clientele who do business in Iran, which is violating the nuclear agreement by concealing bomb material. The U.S. government believes Nick can use his contacts to help the military transport it out of Iran. The attorney, who doesn’t believe moving that much material is feasible, suggests an alternate plan: destroy it in situ. The president agrees, and Nick sets about recruiting Iranians—more specifically, his new bride and fellow lawyer, Laleh Sassani, who in turn recruits her affluent father, Behnam Sassani. President Obama and agents convince Nick to supervise the seven physicists on their covert mission in Iran. Nick and the “eggheads” undergo physical training and test a small nuclear bomb to ensure it will detonate. He also makes certain his loved ones are financially secure, in case he doesn’t return. Readers may have trouble cozying up to the recurring protagonist. Nick definitely has positive attributes—an unmistakable fondness for his Harlem hometown and not flaunting his wealth. But the married man ogles and fantasizes about women while constantly clashing with female authorities, like drill instructor Sgt. Harriet Lane. Likewise, he readily admits he doesn’t love Laleh, marrying her simply for her cooperation in the Iran plan. Descriptions are sometimes threadbare (Nick’s “odd looking cellular telephone, like nothing normal humans carry around”) but never confusing. The final act is bolstered by a threat of global war. It’s riveting stuff, though the finale includes a jarring personnel shift.
Not the most likable protagonist but watching him confront danger may garner interest in his previous tales.Pub Date: March 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5236-7879-2
Page Count: 314
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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