A litany of sordid crimes that are both a MacGuffin for and a window into a chilling, compelling era.
As Nazism tightens its grip on Germany, an English crime reporter tackles a handful of juicy stories.
Downing resumes the story of John Russell in a seventh Station novel, a prequel set many years before his spy work last seen in Masaryk Station (2013). In February 1933, reporter Russell is on a train when he and other passengers spot a raging fire in the distance. It’s the historic Reichstag fire; a moment later, the new chancellor, Adolf Hitler, and his information chief, Joseph Goebbels, emerge from a black Mercedes at the scene. Russell’s journalistic investigations play out against a backdrop of escalating violence and oppression. Downing's inclusion of episodes from the rise of Nazism and backstories involving Russell and his expatriate friends adds texture but slows the propulsive pace of the story. The castration and murder of young male prostitute Fredo Ratzel sends Russell in search of the man's missing roommate, Timo Baur. Divorce looms, meanwhile, for Russell and his estranged wife, Ilse, threatening his right to live in Germany. Although their relationship is amicable, Russell worries about Paul, their 6-year-old son. Through Ilse’s new partner, Russell meets war veteran Wilhelm Zollitsch, whose rebellious daughter, Lili, has disappeared. Is this the latest kidnapping by the SA, the Nazi paramilitary arm? A third provocative story that Russell is chasing involves the hit-and-run death of Konrad Mommsen, judged an accident by jaded Detective Kuzorra. Gaining access to Mommsen’s American widow, Donna, by serving as a translator in her police interview, Russell presses for more information.
A litany of sordid crimes that are both a MacGuffin for and a window into a chilling, compelling era.Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-641-29107-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
A novel that’s lacking both as fiction and history.
The latest Patterson co-write dramatizes unproven rumors that Adolf Hitler shot and killed his 23-year-old half niece, Geli Raubal, in Munich in 1931 in a fit of jealousy.
As with other young women in his past, Hitler essentially kept Raubal captive and forced her to participate in perverse sexual rituals with him. The murder occurs after she tells him she’s leaving Munich for Vienna to be with a man she intends to marry. (Fictional) police detective Thomas Bauer, a war hero whose wife and children are Jewish, risks his life over and over to nail Hitler for the crime (which is ruled a suicide) as the fascist state evolves and concentration camp horrors unfold. Periodically, the action shifts to the present, when in brief superfluous scenes an American professor, Eleanor Robbins, is mysteriously targeted for her efforts to obtain films of Hitler’s final moments with Raubal. The portrayal of Hitler is so caricatured that he casts a thin shadow here—as do the evil trio of Goebbels, Himmler, and Göring—depriving the story of urgency. The authors are more comfortable offsetting sobering, dutifully rolled out facts about Hitler’s rise and fall with breezy entertainment. Bauer, a master of the wisecrack, teams up with a young former intelligence officer in buddy-movie fashion. In one of this overlong novel’s best scenes, Raubal—the subject of much better novels, including Ron Hansen’s Hitler’s Niece (1999)—goes to a nightclub with Hitler; once there, he nudges her into showing off her vocal skills, only to have her ruffle his insecurities by stealing attention. In the end, Robbins pronounces, “Everything that happened…could have been prevented, if honest people had been allowed to simply do their jobs.” Fat chance of that.
A novel that’s lacking both as fiction and history.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2026
ISBN: 9780316404099
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
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