A tightly structured war novel, written with intelligence and verve.
Summers (The Shain Family at Shakertown, 1808-1922, etc.) offers a World War II thriller about espionage and betrayal overseas.
Randy Emerson studied archaeology at Harvard University, and then spent some postgraduation years living in French North Africa, becoming fluent in both French and Arabic. The suave, handsome man also created a vast network of friends and professional contacts—the perfect cover for a spy, which is exactly why the U.S. War Department approaches him in July 1941. He’s sent off for training in several countries and then dispatched to Casablanca, Morocco, tasked with hunting down traitors and enemy spies there. He’s told to assimilate as seamlessly as possible into the local culture, cultivate sources of information, and, of course, trust no one. Summers describes the setting as “an open city in North Africa where spies, current and ex-military, gun runners, pimps and scoundrels and all manner of law-breakers gathered to feast off the excess of this new world war.” Emerson is also given extraordinary autonomy in deciding how to handle problems, such as moles, as they arise. He answers to Robert Murphy, the head of a group known as the “Twelve Apostles,” and quickly finds a teammate in Mungo Craig, a native German speaker who grew up in French Québec. The two quickly establish home bases where they can clandestinely meet, send radio transmissions, and begin their hunts. Summers is a prolific author of both fiction and nonfiction, and this is the 13th volume of his Lynch’s Corner Series. Summers’ experience shows in the polished prose as well as in the rigorous research evident on every page; his knowledge of North African culture, as well as the history of the period, is formidable. Also, the story provides something of a concise tutorial on the beginnings of the Office of Strategic Services, the less bureaucratic precursor to the CIA. There’s no scarcity of sharply conveyed intrigue, but the dialogue has the feel of 1940s film noir, which sometimes makes it seem like an homage and other times like a parody. Still, there’s more than enough action here to satisfy fans of historical thrillers, and plenty of edification to boot.
A tightly structured war novel, written with intelligence and verve.Pub Date: June 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5329-3935-8
Page Count: 388
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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