An engaging global tale featuring unexplained deaths, striking locales, and plenty of intrigue.
In this debut international thriller, an intelligence analyst looks into supposedly natural deaths around the world that have perplexing circumstances.
David works for a covert intelligence organization. His latest assignment focuses on the mysterious death of Günther Fischer in Portofino, Italy. Security footage shows Fischer, who runs a company that trades in rare-earth elements, apparently asleep and then “writhing in agony” before dying. A pathologist determines that he died from jellyfish poisoning. But as there’s no jellyfish in the footage or at the scene, “natural causes” becomes the official reason for his demise. Two equally baffling deaths follow: Belgian fashion designer Marie Thérèse Dupont mysteriously dies during a long-distance flight to Singapore, and Gregory Duncan, founder of the Intellectual Property Law Firm, apparently dies from a lightning bolt on the Greek island of Santorini, despite no recent storm. David and his new romantic interest, Elizabeth Wilson, a British television journalist, spot a link among all three deaths—Fischer and Dupont were both clients of Duncan’s firm. Shockingly, David’s boss doesn’t want him pursuing the investigation any further. “It’s not something that concerns us,” he says, before writing off the peculiar deaths’ connection as a coincidence. Meanwhile, Goran Dragovic is raising funds for his foundation, Chronos, which finances research into prolonging life, ideally to 150 years. He and Chronos may have a tie to the strange events, which soon include additional deaths on the Italian island of Capri and at a holiday resort on Turks and Caicos. Regardless of his boss’s command, David continues to investigate, determined to track down what he calls the “ghost killer.”
Pascal’s novel is brimming with detailed backstories and lavish scenery. With such an abundance of characters, a few of these well-developed individuals, like those related to the victims, play only small roles in the overall tale. But the diverse settings typically enhance the narrative. For example, at the Naples departure point for Capri, there’s “the usual crowd of tourists. Couples and families with heavy suitcases. A mass of humanity waiting anxiously to board. All seemingly escaping the frenetic city life for a holiday in Capri’s enchanting little streets.” Similarly, historical backdrops are rich even when they decelerate the plot. In one instance, a lecture on the history of Pavia, Italy—from a university professor with former romantic ties to Dragovic—dominates the narrative spotlight. The book retains a good deal of mystery throughout, most notably involving Dragovic, whose foundation, notwithstanding its apparent titular connection, is not an integral part of the story. But readers will get some answers by the end, highlighted by specifics on how each victim died—a startling and unsettling reveal. Although David is the novel’s main sleuth, there are lengthy narrative stretches in which he doesn’t appear. And while his dedication to the investigation is palpable, he doesn’t uncover very much in the way of evidence. In fact, he still has work to do by the story’s conclusion, which is an obvious setup for a sequel. The cliffhanger ending will definitely whet readers’ appetites for the next volume.
An engaging global tale featuring unexplained deaths, striking locales, and plenty of intrigue. (acknowledgements, author bio)Pub Date: March 2, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 277
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.
What should be a rare horror—a woman gone missing—becomes a pattern in Kubica's latest thriller.
One night, a young mother goes for a run. She never comes home. A few weeks later, the body of Meredith, another missing woman, is found with a self-inflicted knife wound; the only clue about the fate of her still-missing 6-year-old daughter, Delilah, is a note that reads, "You’ll never find her. Don’t even try." Eleven years later, a girl escapes from a basement where she’s been held captive and severely abused; she reports that she is Delilah. Kubica alternates between chapters in the present narrated by Delilah’s younger brother, Leo, now 15 and resentful of the hold Delilah’s disappearance and Meredith’s death have had on his father, and chapters from 11 years earlier, narrated by Meredith and her neighbor Kate. Meredith begins receiving texts that threaten to expose her and tear her life apart; she struggles to keep them, and her anxiety, from her family as she goes through the motions of teaching yoga and working as a doula. One client in particular worries her; Meredith fears her husband might be abusing her, and she's also unhappy with the way the woman’s obstetrician treats her. So this novel is both a mystery about what led to Meredith’s death and Delilah’s imprisonment and the story of what Delilah's return might mean to her family and all their well-meaning neighbors. Someone is not who they seem; someone has been keeping secrets for 11 long years. The chapters complement one another like a patchwork quilt, slowly revealing the rotten heart of a murderer amid a number of misdirections. The main problem: As it becomes clear whodunit, there’s no true groundwork laid for us to believe that this person would behave at all the way they do.
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-778-38944-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Park Row Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.
A woman’s life takes a stunning turn and a wall comes tumbling down in this tense Cold War spy drama.
In Berlin in 1989, the wall is about to crumble, and Anne Simpson’s husband, Stefan Koehler, goes missing. She is a translator working with refugees from the communist bloc, and he is a piano tuner who travels around Europe with orchestras. Or so he claims. German intelligence service the BND and America’s CIA bring her in for questioning, wrongly thinking she’s protecting him. Soon she begins to learn more about Stefan, whom she had met in the Netherlands a few years ago. She realizes he’s a “gregarious musician with easy charm who collected friends like a beachcomber collects shells, keeping a few, discarding most.” Police find his wallet in a canal and his prized zither in nearby bushes but not his body. Has he been murdered? What’s going on? And why does the BND care? If Stefan is alive, he’s in deep trouble, because he’s believed to be working for the Stasi. She’s told “the dead have a way of showing up. It is only the living who hide.” And she’s quite believable when she wonders, “Can you grieve for someone who betrayed you?” Smart and observant, she notes that the reaction by one of her interrogators is “as false as his toupee. Obvious, uncalled for, and easily put on.” Lurking behind the scenes is the Matchmaker, who specializes in finding women—“American. Divorced. Unhappy,” and possibly having access to Western secrets—who will fall for one of his Romeos. Anne is the perfect fit. “The matchmaker turned love into tradecraft,” a CIA agent tells her. But espionage is an amoral business where duty trumps decency, and “deploring the morality of spies is like deploring violence in boxers.” It’s a sentiment John le Carré would have endorsed, but Anne may have the final word.
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64313-865-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
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