A complex, multilayered thriller that sometimes overly depends on coincidence.
An ex-cop discovers a drug cartel’s huge money stash—but the group will do anything to get it back.
Jack Williams doesn’t feel like a lucky man as this thriller opens. He’s an experienced former Marine sniper, MP, and detective with the Denver Police Department, but now drives trucks for a living. Many would call Jack a hero for shooting a pedophile in the head to prevent him from assaulting a terrified 8-year-old boy, but an “ambitious DA” tried to make an example of the cop. Though Jack didn’t serve jail time and was convicted on lesser charges, he was dismissed from the force and then his wife divorced him, gaining custody of their two daughters and moving to California. But Jack’s luck seems to turn when he’s driving on a steep, winding Colorado mountain pass at 3 a.m. The cargo van ahead misses a curve, hurtling over the side; acting as a good Samaritan, Jack climbs down and discovers two passengers, dead or dying. Plastic-wrapped stacks of $100 bills and other clues tell Jack that the van was transporting Mexican cartel money, probably for laundering. Believing he’s left no evidence behind, he works out a careful plan to safely retrieve, store, and launder $120 million with the help of his lawyer, Henry Berman, totally loyal because it was his son Jack saved from the pedophile. In the Caribbean, whose offshore banks will discreetly take large cash deposits, Jack will start a cover business—perhaps in private charter security. He’s set to make a better life for himself and his daughters—except his luck again turns bad. The cartel wants its money back and a ruthless killer is soon on Jack’s trail. Meanwhile, Ray Cruz, a DEA undercover investigator, becomes embedded with the cartel bigwig whose cash was in the van, and a Caribbean figure plays a double game. When Jack’s family is put in danger, he must use all his skills to tip the balance of luck again in his favor. Thomas (The Kingdom Shall Fall, 2017, etc.) offers a great hook in this well-plotted tale—the windfall that might be too hot to handle. The details of getting, storing, and laundering the money are compelling, and the author thinks through what it would take. Dialogue and police/military elements are also well handled, with a strong air of authenticity. For example, when Jack must undertake a military-style mission, a friend explains the weaponry: “With the fucking kick and impact expansion of the hot 7.62 NATO 175-grain hollow-point round this bitch fires, close is all you’ll need.” The pace is slowed down somewhat by attention to inessential facets or logistics, as in this passage featuring Felix Brillo, a cartel member, and Ray: “After getting Felix situated in the rear seat with his seat belt on, the pilot stored their bags in a small compartment and told Ray to join him in the front.” And at times, the plot relies too much on events extremely convenient to Jack or on coincidence (including one involving a financial matter).
A complex, multilayered thriller that sometimes overly depends on coincidence.Pub Date: April 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9965607-3-3
Page Count: 385
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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