A riveting drama about radicalization and terrorist surveillance on American soil.
In this thriller, an interrogator gets tapped to extract information from a suicide bomber about a major terrorist attack planned for the United States.
In September 1989, Georges Fadi Subdallah is on a Vespa, having coached “those crafty Egyptians on how to turn this little bike into a big bomb.” At the security gate of an Arlington, Virginia, government building, he takes off his helmet, wired for transmissions from a terrorist leader named Marcel Karim, to deal with the guard. When the guard mentions that the building is empty due to asbestos work, Fadi reflects that “he had come too far, and he was so close to his end,” deciding to keep this information from Marcel. Thinking of “his two sweet girls,” Fadi proceeds to his planned spot and detonates himself. Ten months later, Emma Ripley is at her boring Department of Defense surveillance desk job in Arlington. She gets a hush-hush assignment from her previous overseas interrogation boss: Get U.S.-born Fadi, who barely survived self-immolation and is secretly imprisoned nearby, to talk about an imminent U.S. hit planned by Marcel. The narrative crosscuts between this urgent mission and Fadi’s backstory about joining Marcel’s cell, culminating in an incident at Boston’s Hancock building. Davies has crafted an accomplished thriller that showcases intriguing characters amid suspenseful, stop-the-plot action. Emma, who prioritized overseas work over her husband and child, muses how, as an unattached, divorced woman, she would be an ideal suicide bomber candidate. She also assesses dating prospects as if they were surveillance subjects. Fadi’s “two sweet girls” are his wife and daughter (also Marcel’s sister and niece), whose deaths in Egypt led to his suicidal action. The author skillfully depicts Fadi’s chilling evolution. Davies traces Fadi’s uneasiness and anger in America, including his being a victim of racially motivated violence in college, offering compelling, documentary-type insights into this character’s road to terrorism.
A riveting drama about radicalization and terrorist surveillance on American soil.Pub Date: July 7, 2023
ISBN: 979-8350903683
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Shaling Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.
A series of mounting complications leads to yet another fight to the death between the discarded intelligence agents of Slough House and the morally bankrupt head of MI5.
As Jackson Lamb’s motley crew on Aldersgate Street struggles to cope with the deaths of River Cartwright’s grandfather and mentor, intelligence veteran David Cartwright, and their dim, beloved colleague Min Harper, new troubles are brewing. Diana Taverner, who runs the British Intelligence Service from Regent’s Park, is being blackmailed by former MP Peter Judd to do his bidding. Nothing untoward about that, of course, but this time, Judd’s demands, backed by a compromising tape recording, are more pressing than usual. So Diana reconvenes the Brains Trust—Al Hawke, Avril Potts, Daisy Wessex, and their ex-boss Charles Cornell Stamoran—whose last assignment was to serve as the contact for psychopathic IRA informant Dougie Malone while turning a blind eye to his multiple rapes and murders, which were really none of the Crown’s business. Taverner’s new assignment for the Brains Trust is the assassination of Judd. Since all these developments are filtered through the riotously cynical lens of Herron’s imagination, nothing goes as planned, and when the smoke clears, the fatalities don’t include Judd. Now that Judd knows he has as much reason to fear Taverner as she does to fear him, Lamb offers to broker a peace meeting between them which Slough House computer geek Roddy Ho will keep secret by knocking out 37 security cameras around Taverner’s dwelling. What could possibly go wrong?
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781641297264
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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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