Brookes' third and possibly final novel to feature Philip Mangan sends the beaten-down rogue spy out in high style while...
Having abandoned people he cared about and compromised his humanity since becoming a spy, British journalist Philip Mangan finds a chance to redeem himself when he meets a Chinese-American teenager targeted by Beijing for her genius in the field of artificial intelligence.
Mangan crosses paths with the teen, Pearl Tao, in Suriname. He has traveled to the South American country from Indonesia in an attempt to hide from his MI6 superiors in London. Pearl's parents, who, unbeknownst to her, are Chinese spies, told her they were going to Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, on vacation. But they are there to make contact with Chinese sources to whom they have promised to deliver Pearl's research. Roughly treated by her untrustworthy, panicky father, she begins to fear for her well-being. Mangan first sees Pearl and her parents in the company of a local lawyer he suspects of having ties to Chinese military intelligence. After chatting with the girl, Mangan instinctively knows she needs his help. But first, he needs to convince her that he's on her side. With the murder—could it have been by MI6?—of an American agent specializing in Chinese affairs and the fatal poisoning of his wife, the plot thickens. Brookes (Spy Games, 2015, etc.) writes in his acknowledgments that this is the final chapter for Mangan, his manipulative London boss Val Hobko, and his troubled handler and one-time lover, Trish Patterson. If so, they'll be sorely missed. In the tradition of Graham Greene, the book is a work of deep moral reckoning and a gripping thriller. As affecting as the story is, the dominant emotion it evokes is fear. Having been shot at, beaten to a pulp, imprisoned, and betrayed in Brookes' trilogy, Mangan has reason to shake in anticipation of the next shock to his system. That Brookes makes the darkest challenges his spy faces utterly believable is a testament to his skill as a novelist.
Brookes' third and possibly final novel to feature Philip Mangan sends the beaten-down rogue spy out in high style while introducing a terrific new character in a teenager trapped in her own secretive life.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-50349-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Redhook/Orbit
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.
Coulter’s treasured FBI agents take on two cases marked by danger and personal involvement.
Dillon Savitch and his wife, Lacey Sherlock, have special abilities that have served them well in law enforcement (Paradox, 2018, etc.). But that doesn't prevent Sherlock’s car from hitting a running man after having been struck by a speeding SUV that runs a red light. The runner, though clearly injured, continues on his way and disappears. Not so the SUV driver, a security engineer for the Bexholt Group, which has ties to government agencies. Sherlock’s own concussion causes memory loss so severe that she doesn’t recognize Savitch or remember their son, Sean. The whole incident seems more suspicious when a blood test from the splatter of the man Sherlock hit reveals that he’s Justice Cummings, an analyst for the CIA. The agency’s refusal to cooperate makes Savitch certain that Bexholt is involved in a deep-laid plot. Meanwhile, Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith is visiting friends who run a cafe in the touristy Virginia town of Gaffers Ridge. Hammersmith, who has psychic abilities, is taken aback when he hears in his mind a woman’s cry for help. Reporter Carson DeSilva, who came to the area to interview a Nobel Prize winner, also has psychic abilities, and she overhears the thoughts of Rafer Bodine, a young man who has apparently kidnapped and possibly murdered three teenage girls. Unluckily, she blurts out her thoughts, and she’s snatched and tied up in a cellar by Bodine. Bodine may be a killer, but he’s also the nephew of the sheriff and the son of the local bigwig. So the sheriff arrests Hammersmith and refuses to accept his FBI credentials. Bodine's mother has psychic powers strong enough to kill, but she meets her match in Hammersmith, DeSilva, Savitch, and Sherlock.
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9365-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Too much drama at the end detracts from a finely wrought and subtle conundrum.
Ware (In A Dark, Dark Wood, 2015) offers up a classic “paranoid woman” story with a modern twist in this tense, claustrophobic mystery.
Days before departing on a luxury cruise for work, travel journalist Lo Blacklock is the victim of a break-in. Though unharmed, she ends up locked in her own room for several hours before escaping; as a result, she is unable to sleep. By the time she comes onboard the Aurora, Lo is suffering from severe sleep deprivation and possibly even PTSD, so when she hears a big splash from the cabin next door in the middle of the night, “the kind of splash made by a body hitting water,” she can’t prove to security that anything violent has actually occurred. To make matters stranger, there's no record of any passenger traveling in the cabin next to Lo’s, even though Lo herself saw a woman there and even borrowed makeup from her before the first night’s dinner party. Reeling from her own trauma, and faced with proof that she may have been hallucinating, Lo continues to investigate, aided by her ex-boyfriend Ben (who's also writing about the cruise), fighting desperately to find any shred of evidence that she may be right. The cast of characters, their conversations, and the luxurious but confining setting all echo classic Agatha Christie; in fact, the structure of the mystery itself is an old one: a woman insists murder has occurred, everyone else says she’s crazy. But Lo is no wallflower; she is a strong and determined modern heroine who refuses to doubt the evidence of her own instincts. Despite this successful formula, and a whole lot of slowly unraveling tension, the end is somehow unsatisfying. And the newspaper and social media inserts add little depth.
Too much drama at the end detracts from a finely wrought and subtle conundrum.Pub Date: July 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-3293-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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