Lurid, if not original.
In this testosterone rampage, a super-studly master thief pulls off gonzo caper in post-Soviet Russia.
Having absorbed every cliché of Bond-knockoff tale-telling—the outsize villains, the world-weary cynicism, the sexy girl—debut novelist Ghelfi breathlessly parlays them all again. The girl is comely Valya, whom protagonist Volk (the name means “wolf”) meets cute as a “mud-masked Chechen fighter dwarfed by the smoking Kalashnikov she carried.” Volk is a “Special Forces wunderkind” who loses a leg in combat after weathering five years of the “assault of rapists, skin-fillet artists, flesh-burning pyromaniacs, and other assorted torturers.” The former foes become squeezes and then a sort of Hart-to-Hart on amphetamines: boy/girl desperadoes. Guns for hire, they’re enlisted by rival Very Bad Guys. Their mission impossible is to break into the Hermitage, St. Petersburg’s ultra-secure treasure trove of big-name artworks. Under a canvas by the obscure Pierre Mignard, a stunner has been discovered—one of the 15 paintings actually done by Leonardo, the only artist—since the canonization of Dan Brown—of whom popular entertainment knows the existence. Volk/Valya have to nab it. Moonlighting from his day job of manufacturing porno, Volk constructs a head-spinningly elaborate game plan, requiring Valya’s “renting an ancient four-seat Moscvitch, two Lambretta scooters, and a skiff, buying secondhand clothes and scuba gear, and arranging drop points.” Predictable betrayals, sex scenes and violence ensue.
Lurid, if not original.Pub Date: June 12, 2007
ISBN: 0-8050-8254-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2007
Chilling.
A glaciologist seeks refuge in Antarctica.
A nearly two-year stint at the British Antarctic Survey’s base on South Georgia Island, halfway between the Antarctic mainland and the Falklands, seems like the perfect job for Cambridge graduate Felicity Lloyd. The landscape is breathtaking, the wildlife like no other in the world, and ever changing glaciers provide vital opportunities to investigate the effects of climate change on humankind’s future. But Felicity has another secret reason for choosing to pursue her professional passion in what may be the most remote place on Earth. She hopes that Freddie, who’s stalked her nearly her whole adult life, will never find her there. The trouble is, she can’t remember much about Freddie or the reason for his obsession with her; her memories are jumbled and distorted, with chunks of time missing from her consciousness the size of the icebergs she studies. Dr. Joe Grant, the psychologist she sees in Cambridge, tries to help her recover her lost moments, but just when he seems to be getting close, Felicity shuts him down, preferring to work out her problems alone in the frigid south. Leaving Felicity to handle her issues on her own, however, may no longer be an option for Joe once his mother, DI Delilah Jones, begins to connect the deaths of some of Cambridge’s homeless to Felicity’s blackouts. Bolton (The Craftsman, 2018, etc.) provides her readers with shivers worthy of her setting, although true aficionados of the psychological thriller may find the secret of Felicity’s illness a bit too easy to recognize.
Chilling.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-30005-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
A proficient but routine thriller in which you can tell for miles in advance who’s disposable and who’s slated for survival,...
The past comes knocking for a former stripper who thought she’d said goodbye to all that in an altogether less-successful distaff reworking of The Innocent (2005).
In some ways, the life Megan Pierce left behind when she stopped giving lap dances and calling herself Cassie was perfect: exciting, glamorous and anything but routine. If only her abusive client Stewart Green hadn’t vanished under circumstances that strongly suggested a violent end, Megan would never have taken a powder, ultimately trading Atlantic City’s La Crème nightclub for the American dream with a lawyer husband, two perfect children and every appliance of the upscale suburban lifestyle. One day, however, Megan—motivated solely, it seems, by the need to kick-start the plot—decides to drop in at La Crème. Her sudden reappearance, together with her old colleague Lorraine Griggs’ sighting of somebody who looks a lot like Stewart and the remarkably similar disappearance exactly 17 years later of construction heir Carlton Flynn, sets in motion a new chain of violence and threatens to reveal all of Megan’s carefully hidden secrets. Eventually she reconnects with her old flame Ray Levine, a photographer who has hit the skids big time, and tells what she knows to Det. Broome of Atlantic City Homicide. But both men’s most protective instincts are challenged by a pair of wholesome killers calling themselves Barbie and Ken—and by the fact that Broome’s own boss is working against him.
A proficient but routine thriller in which you can tell for miles in advance who’s disposable and who’s slated for survival, marked by the virtual absence of the baroque plot twists fans of Coben (Live Wire, 2011, etc.) expect as their due.Pub Date: March 20, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-525-95227-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012
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