Fitfully delivers on its license to thrill but may not leave readers shaken and stirred.
An American intelligence agent gets a (Hono)lulu of a Hawaiian homecoming when he discovers a covert operation against an American ally in Voelker’s inaugural spy thriller.
“It is hard to imagine a national security threat here,” American secret agent Donovan Cross muses upon his return to his native Hawaii after 30 years away. He’s there to investigate the connection between suspicious electronic activities reported near Waikiki and the city’s Chinese underworld. There have been many reported sightings—albeit unverified—of high-ranking members of Chinese military intelligence in Honolulu. What would bring the Chinese military to this specific location, and what connection could there be to the island of Taiwan, over three thousand miles away? The clock is ticking for Cross to foil plans to launch a covert invasion wreaking untold devastation and destruction and endangering the lives of thousands. From Hawaii with love comes this somewhat tentative beginning of the continuing adventures of Mr. Cross. For armchair, poolside, or beach-bound devotees of espionage adventures, the lush tropical setting provides the optimum escape—throw in a hero who’s “the best American intelligence had to offer” (and a gorgeous Cross girl) and you have a passport to old school spy excitement. After a crackerjack opening involving a sabotaged parachute, a blood-frenzied school of hammerhead sharks, and a nick-of-time rescue—the stuff of a swell pre-credit movie sequence—the narrative bogs down a bit with Cross’ upbringing and tragic origin story (though it’s one that yields a climactic twist). Readers don’t need to hear wannabe agent Cross tell his friends, “Every adventure carries risk, but the world needs those willing to face it.” That’s a little too on the nose; just drop him in the middle of a plot to destabilize the globe and set him loose. And perhaps provide him with a worthy adversary like Blofeld.
Fitfully delivers on its license to thrill but may not leave readers shaken and stirred.Pub Date: April 28, 2025
ISBN: 9798218546021
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”
Idyllic Catalina Island turns out to be just as crime infested as the rest of Los Angeles County in the latest series launch by the creator of Harry Bosch, Renée Ballard, and the Lincoln Lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Stilwell has been bounced off the county homicide squad and rusticized to Catalina, where the exclusive Black Marlin Club won’t admit even four-term Avalon Mayor Doug Allen to full membership and the most serious infraction seems to be the killing and cutting up of a buffalo, presumably by Henry Gaston, who operates Island Mystery Tours when he’s not threatening endangered species. All that changes with the discovery of a body sunk in the surrounding waters. The corpse, most recognizable by its streak of purple hair, is that of Leigh-Anne Moss, a Black Marlin server recently fired for fraternizing with members and guests she sees as potential sugar daddies. Stilwell is sufficiently invested in her murder to compete vigorously over jurisdiction with Rex Ahearn, the LA County homicide detective who kept his job when Stilwell lost his. Their rivalry, fueled by mutual contempt, is only the first hint that Stilwell will end up fighting his counterparts in law enforcement and local government at least as hard as he fights crooks like hit man Merris Spivak and Oscar “Baby Head” Terranova, Henry’s boss, who comes under sharper scrutiny when Henry disappears and ends up dead himself. Connelly handles his hero’s obligatory romance with assistant harbormaster Tash Dano and his increasingly wary alliance with assistant D.A. Monika Juarez with equal professionalism, and if the wrap-up leaves some loose ends dangling, well, that’s what franchises are for.
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780316588485
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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
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