A cat-and-mouse caper with the usual stock characters replaced by complex human beings.
A thrilling chase through 1960s Europe with an emotional core and gorgeous prose.
Henri and Louise fatefully cross paths one morning at the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. Henri is a former gendarme living in exile from his homeland of Algeria. Louise is running, too—from a shadowy past in London and the chains of gendered expectations. When she steals the money that Henri is supposed to protect, the two end up in a cat-and-mouse chase across continental Europe—from Granada to Istanbul, with stops in Paris and Belgrade. As the narrative unfolds and an unlikely bond forms between the thief and the enforcer, the reader learns about both their pasts—including crimes, secrets, and private shames. Alternating chapters weave together their final train ride (from Belgrade to Istanbul) with their individual histories and the two-week journey that has brought them to this critical point. The book is front-loaded with too much backstory, but a patient reader will quickly be rewarded by an unconventional heist narrative that is equal parts moving and thrilling. Although they try to resist it, an attraction emerges between Henri and Louise that is at once organic and bittersweet, informed by their shared pain and respective cultural baggage. Mangan’s prose is evocative and specific—she brings midcentury Europe to life through sensory descriptions that conjure the sights, smells, and tastes of each iconic city. The novel is a smart riff on a familiar genre, with complex protagonists and a cliché-defying love story. Even minor characters are imbued with surprising depth, making for memorable, and often humorous, interactions throughout. The world that Henri and Louise inhabit is, at times, heartbreaking, but it is never bleak thanks to the beauty of the language. Through Henri and Louise, the text offers insights about gender and colonization that are as relevant now as they ever were. For fans of spy thrillers and literary romances alike.
A cat-and-mouse caper with the usual stock characters replaced by complex human beings.Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2023
ISBN: 9781250788481
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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