Rich in its historical Irish backdrop while delivering the genre goods.
A man hoping to make sense of his wife’s death in Ireland winds up in the middle of an Irish Republican Army splinter group’s struggle against British forces in Sullivan’s debut thriller.
U.S. college professor Mick McKenna heads to Belfast, where his photojournalist wife, Sarah, died from a car bomb while on their honeymoon. It’s 1998, and Mick wants to learn more about the ongoing Troubles, which may help him understand the reason for Sarah’s death or perhaps come to terms with it. He stays with distant relatives, nationalists who, like the IRA, support the removal of British rule in Ireland. But it’s an IRA splinter group that Mick has to worry about. Members of the New Republican Brotherhood, who reject the country’s proposed peace plan, hold Mick hostage after he witnesses a murder. His only chance of staying alive, it seems, is to aid the group in a terrorist strike. The author tells two stories. The first is of the Irish-American widower learning about his heritage; the second is a taut thriller. The novel starts slow but builds: Mick’s needs for answers and apparent vengeance for his wife’s murder gradually wane as he garners an appreciation and respect for Ireland’s political circumstances. Once the New Republican Brotherhood enters the story, there are unmistakable villains, and tensions skyrocket when the group sends Mick to New York to extract info for finalizing a sale of surface-to-air missiles. Despite the two narratives, Sullivan clearly has a cohesive tale. FBI Special Agent Cecil Maxwell, for one, is working a case on the gunrunning IRA in the States, which ultimately connects to Mick’s predicament. Mick’s love of Sarah is likewise a persistent theme: the hint of attraction and possible romance between Mick and Jillian Morrissey in Ireland seems to keep Mick focused on his late wife. The final act, in contrast to the beginning’s unhurried pace, practically sprints to the end, while the quiet epilogue is a fine coda.
Rich in its historical Irish backdrop while delivering the genre goods.Pub Date: May 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4959-7064-1
Page Count: 426
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This thriller is taut and fast-paced but lacks compelling protagonists.
Three siblings who have been out of touch for more than 20 years grapple with their unsettling childhoods, but when the youngest inherits the family home, all are drawn back together.
At the age of 25, Libby Jones learns she has inherited a large London house that was held in a trust left to her by her birthparents. When she visits the lawyer, she is shocked to find out that she was put up for adoption when she was 10 months old after her parents died in the house in an apparent suicide pact with an unidentified man and that she has an older brother and sister who were teenagers at the time of their parents' deaths and haven't been seen since. Meanwhile, in alternating narratives, we're introduced to Libby's sister, Lucy Lamb, who's on the verge of homelessness with her two children in the south of France, and her brother, Henry Lamb, who's attempting to recall the last few disturbing years with his parents during which they lost their wealth and were manipulated into letting friends move into their home. These friends included the controlling but charismatic David Thomsen, who moved his own wife and two children into the rooms upstairs. Henry also remembers his painful adolescent confusion as he became wildly infatuated with Phineas, David’s teenage son. Meanwhile, Libby connects with Miller Roe, the journalist who covered the story about her family, and the pair work together to find her brother and sister, determine what happened when she was an infant, and uncover who has recently been staying in the vacant house waiting for Libby to return. As Jewell (Watching You, 2018, etc.) moves back and forth from the past to the present, the narratives move swiftly toward convergence in her signature style, yet with the exception of Lucy’s story, little suspense is built up and the twists can’t quite make up for the lack of deep characters and emotionally weighty moments.
This thriller is taut and fast-paced but lacks compelling protagonists.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9010-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
A Gone Girl–esque confection with villainy and melodrama galore.
A wealthy woman with a handsome husband is preyed on by a ruthless con artist.
One day at the gym, Amber Patterson drops the magazine she’s reading between her exercise bike and that of the woman who happens to be beside her, Daphne Parrish. As she bends to pick it up, Daphne notices that it’s the publication of a cystic fibrosis foundation. What a coincidence—Daphne’s sister died of cystic fibrosis, and, why, so did Amber’s! “Slowing her pace, Amber wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. It took a lot of acting skills to cry about a sister who never existed.” Step one complete. “All she needed from Daphne was everything.” Everything, in this case, consists of Daphne’s outlandishly wealthy and blisteringly hot husband, Jackson, and all the real estate that comes with him; Daphne can definitely keep her two whiny brats. Amber hates children. But once she finds out that Daphne’s failure to give Jackson a male heir is the main source of tension in the marriage, she sees exactly how to make this work. Amber’s constant, spiteful inner monologue as she plays up to Daphne is the best thing about this book. For example, as Daphne talks about the many miseries her sister Julie went through before her death, Amber is thinking, “At least Julie had grown up in a nice house with money and parents who cared about her. Okay, she was sick and then she died. So what? A lot of people were sick. A lot of people died.…How about Amber and what she’d gone through?” Meanwhile, poor, stupid Daphne is so caught up in the joy of finally having a friend, she seems to be handing Jackson to her on a platter. Constantine’s debut novel is the work of two sisters in collaboration, and these ladies definitely know the formula.
A Gone Girl–esque confection with villainy and melodrama galore.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-266757-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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