Have no fear. Reich (Rules of Betrayal, 2010, etc.) supplies plenty of code-named acronyms and villains, a high body count,...
A hedge fund chief and his ex-wife, an FBI supervisory agent, work at odds to solve the murders of his father and her colleagues and prevent the meltdown of the world’s capital markets to boot.
Whatever malfeasance Edward Astor, chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange, and his friends, Charles Hughes, chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Treasury Secretary Martin Gelman, unearthed must have been a doozy. As they approach the White House to rouse the president from sleep and alert him to the peril, an unseen power takes control of their car and causes it to drive so recklessly that the Secret Service shoots it up, leaving them all dead. They’re followed in short order by three of Astor's ex-wife Alex Forza’s fellow FBI agents when the agents pursue a tip to a Queens apartment and learn the hard way that an observant neighbor did indeed see cartons of automatic weapons coming into the place. Now it’s up to Astor’s son Bobby, who’s never been close to his father, and Alex, who hasn’t been close to Bobby for years, to avenge the murders. Even though Bobby and Alex are both obsessed with their separate cases, they have no idea how closely they’re intertwined. And most readers will be scratching their heads as well, wondering how a plot to ruin Bobby by manipulating the value of the Chinese yuan and cripple the New York Stock Exchange through “industrial espionage as state-sponsored covert policy” might be connected to the 30 cells of well-trained mercenaries who’ve sneaked into the country in a fine flourish of mayhem overkill.
Have no fear. Reich (Rules of Betrayal, 2010, etc.) supplies plenty of code-named acronyms and villains, a high body count, patient explanations of arcane financial transactions and regulations, and a heroine who prays to J. Edgar Hoover. How could the exchange, the nation and the free world possibly be in better hands?Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-385-53506-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: He’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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