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THE SUMMER GUESTS

A complex mix of fright and fun.

Summer guests find big trouble in Purity, Maine, in this sequel to The Spy Coast (2023).

In 1972, a Purity policeman watches a driver mow down and kill three innocent people on Main Street. Then the madman shoots the officer, and soon they are all dead. Investigators never learn why such an ordinary, apparently law-abiding citizen suddenly committed such a ghastly act, and the sad story gradually fades. Jump a half-century to the present day, when the Conovers, a family of longtime summer residents, are arriving back in town. Fifteen-year-old Zoe goes swimming in Maiden Pond with a newfound friend and mysteriously disappears later that day. She is an excellent swimmer and diver, so drowning seems unlikely. Perhaps she has been abducted, perhaps worse. She is not “the sort of girl you’d think would get into trouble." Naturally, Zoe’s parents are frantic. Enter acting Police Chief Jo Thibodeau and the Martini Club, a delightful group of five retired government spooks who just love a good puzzle to keep their aging brains in shape. They are merry meddlers who keep trying to help Thibodeau, a “dogged investigator” who resists their aid, or tries to. The Martini Club asks the acting chief to keep them in the loop, and of course she wants them nowhere near the case. But by that time, the five ex-spies are already involved, and one of them, Maggie Bird, surmises that this is most likely a kidnapping case. Maiden Pond is central to the story. There are a mix of houses around it, on one side seasonal rentals for the well to do, and on the other—the marshy, buggy side—permanent homes for the locals, such as the son of the long-ago murderer. Nobody waves at Reuben Tarkin, a social outcast because of his father’s heinous crime. The Conovers say he’d harassed their nanny to the point where she’d suddenly up and quit. Meanwhile, the investigators chase down clue after clue, wondering the who, what, and why of it all. The Conovers doubt Thibodeau’s abilities, believing she’s in over her head. The Martini Club folks continually impress her with their insights. “You people just love being smarter than me, don’t you?” But secrets and plot twists abound, and their collective intellect may not be enough.

A complex mix of fright and fun.

Pub Date: March 18, 2025

ISBN: 9781662515149

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025

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AN INSIDE JOB

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

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NEVER FLINCH

Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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

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