Action junkies will love this one.
The eighth danger-dripping crime thriller featuring Peter Ash.
One bitterly cold Wisconsin winter, Marine combat vet Peter Ash and his tight friend Lewis pay a visit to Teddy “Upstate” Wilson, a one-eyed ex-con, only to find him shivering in the snow while his cabin burns to the ground. Attackers have shot his dogs and stolen his notebooks, which are key to the story. As part of his therapy after having been shot in the head, Teddy has been writing down everything he can remember, from bowel movements to sex with his speech pathologist to the many crimes he’s committed—including dates, locations, and the names of everyone involved. Those latter details could get a lot of folks, Lewis included, offed or imprisoned. Series fans already know that Lewis occasionally heads an elusive group that robs and often kills upper-level bad guys. Said group is an underworld legend often called the Ghost Killers, and even law enforcement is unsure whether the group is more than a myth. Lewis has a strong moral code: “You only go after people the law can’t get,” and you never shoot anybody who has his hands up. Teddy is a bit simple, due in part to his brain injury. Before his attack, Teddy had even stopped slapping mosquitoes, but his character arc takes him far from that gentle self. Peter and Lewis, on the other hand, don’t change dramatically from story to story. Both have strong loyalty to family and to each other and are brave, smart, and deadly in a fight. Here the mortal enemy is an ex-CIA dude named Jay Streyling, a stereotypical killer lacking in redeeming qualities. Above him is a fearsome boss whose personal grief fuels an enduring over-the-top rage. On the good-guy side of the ledger, Peter and Lewis have June and Dinah, respectively, in their lives. They’re strong, take-no-crap women determined that their men—their families—stay alive. For sheer entertainment value, though, there’s no beating Teddy Wilson. All he wants is his set of notebooks and permission to fire tranquilizer darts. Oh, and maybe to hang someone by his ankles outside a 23rd-floor window.
Action junkies will love this one.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593540558
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.
The 25th novel featuring Silva’s legendary protagonist.
During his intersecting careers as art restorer and Israeli spy, Gabriel Allon has tangled with Russian gangsters and al-Qaida terrorists. He has become well-acquainted with operatives in multiple security agencies and befriended a paid assassin. He has busted art thieves and created passable forgeries by Renaissance masters and abstract Modernists. This latest installment centers around his relationship with the pope and a newly discovered painting by Leonardo da Vinci that has gone missing from the Vatican. Silva’s novels tend to fall into two categories: books that reflect the politics of the day and books that don’t. His latest is one of the latter, which could be a treat for readers looking for escape, but it falls flat for a variety of reasons. Luxury has always been part of Gabriel Allon’s universe. It used to be an aspect of tradecraft, though. Allon would be wearing a very expensive suit and driving a very expensive car because he was posing as a client at a Swiss bank. Here, his wife is hosting a catered lunch for 150 of their daughter’s classmates in their apartment overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice. What once felt like a scintillating peek into the world of the obscenely wealthy now just feels…kind of obscene. Similarly, Allon goes chasing after a missing painting as a civilian—he retired from Mossad in Portrait of an Unknown Woman (2022)—the same way another man his age might buy a speedboat or get hair plugs. As the story progresses, the stakes are raised, but it’s hard to forget that Allon is now a middle-aged man pursuing a dangerous hobby, rather than a spymaster leading his intrepid team to prevent a disaster that will disrupt the global order.
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9780063384217
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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