After several clinkers (O'Farrell's Law, 1989, etc.), Freemantle proved with Little Grey Mice (p. 368) that he can write a solid spy novel outside of his Charlie Muffin series (The Run Around, 1989, etc.). Now it's back to Charlie—who's in deep water but finest fettle, dodging schemes by rival British agents, as well as by the KGB. The story begins on a roguish note, with scrappy Charlie wooing the secretary of new boss and longtime rival Richard Harkness to find out his latest plans to ruin Charlie's career. Harkness's enmity is small potatoes, though, compared to that of Charlie's old foe, KGB general Alexei Berenkov, who's setting about during these final Gorbachev days to steal America's Star Wars plans and, as a bonus, to destroy Charlie. The action shifts from London to Moscow to L.A., where one of Berenkov's agents blackmails a top defense contractor (and unfaithful husband) into turning over his company's Star Wars plans. Back in London, at the facility aiding in Star Wars, a midlevel employee (and bigamist) is blackmailed by another Soviet spy; and, back in Moscow, Berenkov orders Charlie's old flame, KGB agent Natalie Fedova, on a mission to Britain, knowing that Charlie will contact her. And Charlie does, passionately reuniting with Natalie—and stepping into Berenkov's plot to pin him as the Star Wars thief through Berenkov's planting incriminating evidence for gullible Harkness to collect. Will Natalie defect for love of Charlie? Will Charlie swing from the noose woven by Berenkov/Harkness? It all comes down to a rousingly climactic department hearing in which wily Charlie pulls rabbits out of his sleeve—while, with her plane about to take her back to Moscow, Natalie waits for Charlie, and waits.... Intricate plotting, gripping intrigue, and a memorable romance add up to the tastiest Muffin in many a year.
Pub Date: Dec. 9, 1992
ISBN: 0-312-08166-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1992
Mystery, danger, and sexual tension abound in an action-packed thriller that breaks plenty of heads but no new ground.
Sparks fly as a woman with extraordinary abilities fights her attraction to a dangerous freelance consultant.
Dr. Kendra Michaels has worked with former FBI Agent Adam Lynch before (Double Blind, 2018), but she’s furious with him for getting her tossed out of Afghanistan after she sustained a minor wound while trying to root out corruption. Kendra, who was blind until an experimental operation restored her sight at 20, has highly developed senses of smell, hearing, and spatial awareness that she’s used to help the FBI and CIA in many difficult cases. Now, as she returns to the U.S., they have another one she can’t resist investigating. Elaine Wessler and Ronald Kim, both staff members at her old school, the Woodward Academy for the Physically Disabled in Oceanside, California, have been found murdered for no apparent reason, and FBI Special Agent Michael Griffin is anxious to use her skills and inside knowledge. Elaine had been fostering an unusual guide dog, Harley, who's had problems adjusting since the child he was working with was killed in a gas-main explosion. Now that Elaine is gone, his unearthly howls are upsetting the students. Kendra talks her best friend, Olivia, who’s blind, into sharing custody of Harley until they can find him the right home. Meanwhile, she turns up clues the FBI team missed and is rewarded for her efforts with a bomb planted in her car. It turns out to be fake, but it’s still a potent warning to walk away. Returning from Afghanistan to help Kendra, Lynch finds her still angry with him and intent on resisting his charms. Her friend Jessie Mercado, a private eye, turns up to help extricate her from a dangerous situation and sticks around to join the hunt for the killers. It will take all of them, including Harley, to solve the violent, complex case and get the school Kendra loves back on track.
Mystery, danger, and sexual tension abound in an action-packed thriller that breaks plenty of heads but no new ground.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5387-6292-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
Easy to read, smoothly put together. A good airport book.
An angry ex-wife is stalking a young, innocent fiancee who is a carbon copy of her former self…or so it seems.
The use of a multiviewpoint, chronologically complex narrative to create suspense by purposely misleading the reader is a really, really popular device. Two words: Gone Girl. While we are not the fools we once were and now assume immediately that we are being played, the question is whether we still take pleasure in the twists and revelations that follow. Pekkanen (The Perfect Neighbors, 2016, etc.) and Hendricks’ debut collaboration falls into the first wife/second wife subgenre of this type of story (e.g., The Girl Before, The Last Mrs. Parrish). In all of these, an unbelievably handsome, wildly successful, secretive, rigid, orderly, and controlling husband—here it’s Richard, a 36-year-old hedge fund manager with “a runner’s wiry build and an easy smile that belied his intense navy-blue eyes”—marries the same type of woman more than once, sometimes more than twice. Of course, he’s not who he seems. Perhaps the female characters are not, either. Here, we meet Nellie, an adorable New York preschool teacher who is not quite sure she wants to give up the fun, shoestring, highly social lifestyle she shares with her roomie to move to a sterile suburb with Richard. But the wedding date—of course he hasn’t even told her the location, just “buy a new bikini”—draws ever closer. Something bad happened to Nellie in Florida a long time ago that has made her anxious and hypervigilant. Meanwhile, Vanessa, the spurned wife, lives with her artist Aunt Charlotte (a great character), is boozing heavily, and is about to lose her job at Saks. She’s stalking Nellie, determined to prevent the marriage at all costs. Since you know there’s got to be more to it than this, the fun is in trying to figure it out before they tell you. We didn’t! One of the subplots, the one about the bad thing in Florida, was fresher than the main plot—maybe Hendricks and Pekkanen should have written a whole book about that.
Easy to read, smoothly put together. A good airport book.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-13092-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
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