Two durable heroes anchor a briskly paced tale of retribution, intrigue, and a daring mission.
A thriller focuses on terrorism, international political unrest, and a married couple who always find themselves on the run.
This fourth installment of Freda’s action series featuring Samantha and James Coppi begins at a heavily attended Baptist church service in northwest Texas where Sam’s father is the pastor. It’s also where a van full of armed Palestinian nationalists lie in wait, primed to swoop in and terrorize the congregation. Unlucky for the Palestinians is the appearance of James, an Army veteran, CIA operative, and private detective, whose scheduled pulpit speech is interrupted by the violence. He courageously intervenes and saves most of the congregants from harm but, in doing so, has now become the target of a Palestinian terrorist group and its ruthless leader. The main henchman, Faakhir, is sent back to exact lethal vengeance (“qisas”) on James and his entire family for thwarting the terrorist plot at the church, even after the detective receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his bravery. Sam and James regroup at their tony Colorado horse ranch, but this respite is short-lived, as they turn their attention to selling the family fashion empire, embarking on a railroad venture, and negotiating a business contract with a royal prince. After James rushes off to Iran to aid in the exile efforts of the shah, Sam is viciously kidnapped and held as bait to get to her husband. Set against the political unrest of the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s, when Middle Eastern terrorism expanded outward, the violence is harrowing and palpable. Thankfully, several subplots involving the evolution of Sam and James’ relationship and their loving interactions with their children and extended family inject much-needed humanity into a story that at times is overwhelmingly brutal. The mad dash to save Sam puts James in mortal danger as the novel globe-trots through Afghanistan, Paris, Lebanon, Monaco, and Pakistan. As evidenced in previous volumes, Freda’s protagonists remain a uniquely daring duo, and the author’s knack for high-speed plotting, dastardly villains, and consistent action is once again on full display in this exciting thrill ride. International suspense fans new to the series will find this thriller satisfying but may want to familiarize themselves with the beginning of Sam and James’ adventures in the inaugural volume, A Police Action (2017).
Two durable heroes anchor a briskly paced tale of retribution, intrigue, and a daring mission.Pub Date: Dec. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-66321-220-7
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Iuniverse Inc
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
The youngest Ryans will please fans of the genre.
The U.S. president’s son lands in the middle of a West African coup in this latest Clancy thriller.
Kyle Ryan is part of a three-man Defense Intelligence Agency team covertly installing cyber communications in Luanda, Angola. His two colleagues are murdered, and he must “run or die.” The Naval Academy grad isn’t a warrior like his older brother, Jack Junior, who sits out this story. President Ryan doesn’t even know his son is in Africa, let alone how much trouble Kyle is in. Then the unit of Navy Lieutenant Commander (and big sister) Katie Ryan gets the call to rescue Americans as an Angolan man, Victor Baptista, tries to overthrow the current democratically elected president. “Fear was the most powerful weapon in Angola,” and Baptista inspires a great deal of it. Too bad for him that the Ryan family never knuckles under to fear. Captured, hooded, and in danger of execution, Kyle has a steadfast bravery that reflects the Ryan DNA. Baptista doesn’t realize at first that among his American prisoners is President Ryan’s son. Oops. Well, with U.S. warships fast approaching Angolan shores, he thinks he can strike a deal with the “fickle and feckless Americans.” A more tuned-in advisor lets Baptista know that President Ryan will never negotiate, even with his son’s life on the line. So this isn’t just the United States the terrorist is dealing with, but the Ryan family. Katie and Kyle use their intelligence, not brute force, while a pissed-off papa bear wields his awesome executive power from the White House. Meanwhile, Baptista’s murderous cruelty leaves his aides and lackeys trembling in fear. This novel looks like Katie and Kyle’s debuts as central characters, and they are Ryans through and through—they run toward trouble, and they have no faults worth mentioning. Parental and filial loyalty mix well with the action and add interest to an otherwise standard (but good) Clancy thriller.
The youngest Ryans will please fans of the genre.Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593718063
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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