Through sheer will, a lone wolf agent makes a big impact in this exciting tale.
A military agent following his gut uncovers a government conspiracy in this thriller.
In this series opener, set in Manuel Noriega’s Panama, Edward’s protagonist is United States Army Special Agent Dirk Lasher. Loner Dirk is an undercover field agent collecting intelligence from low-level informants and funneling it back to analysts. One day, Dirk takes down two strangers who make the mistake of attempting to intimidate him. That’s when he learns that his informants are aware of his undercover status since U.S. agents keep rotating through the same house. Dirk also discovers that the two people he had brutalized are Drug Enforcement Administration agents coming to meet him. He searches for Army Sgt. Jack Williams, who was supposed to let him know about the DEA agents. Dirk rescues Williams, who is being held by the PDF, Noriega’s security force. Dirk also finds out that the PDF is involved with a group looking to crash the international financial market. Then the wife and daughter of Dirk’s informant Thomasito get abducted by Pablo Escobar’s Colombian thugs. Dirk and his volunteer team take part in a DEA assault to try to recover them. Despite suffering a significant loss, Dirk accomplishes his objective, taking intel to a prominent official. Edward, who has previously mostly focused on SF, wrote what he knew this time out. During his Army career, he served as the special agent in charge of the 1990 Panama Canal counterterrorism threat assessment report. That experience lends authenticity to this frenetic novel, as he brings the Panama of Noriega’s time to life. Dirk proves a second-generation soldier, raised by a grandfather who had served. But the protagonist’s doubts about the military bureaucracy shine through as he seeks a more effective way to aid the innocent. The author develops intriguing helpers for Dirk in Jack, a career desk jockey forced into the field, and Sarah Mariana, an ambitious, new Puerto Rican soldier who wants to make her mark on the world. Most of all, Edward has created an engaging hero in Dirk, bound for greater things in the series’ next entry.
Through sheer will, a lone wolf agent makes a big impact in this exciting tale.Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2021
ISBN: 979-8460105618
Page Count: 305
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Maybe not the most thrilling thriller, but the role of AI in coping with grief gives this novel pathos and interest.
A widowed and disgraced plastic surgeon is drawn into a Russian oligarch’s evil schemes.
Witherspoon’s adult fiction debut, co-authored with thrillermeister Coben, opens as heart surgery performed by Dr. Marc Adams in a North African refugee camp is interrupted by the explosive invasion of armed militants. It's the last we will see of Marc in this dimension. The next chapter jumps ahead one year to a ceremony at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore where his widow, Maggie McCabe, is supposed to be presenting an award in honor of her mother. Miserable and anxious about appearing in public after having lost her medical license, she consults with her late husband on her phone—not via supernatural means, but using a "griefbot," an amazingly lifelike and functional AI app created by her genius sister, Sharon. Once the griefbot coaxes her to brave the sneering masses, she learns she’s been replaced on the podium anyway. But she runs into a former professor, a celebrity plastic surgeon, who requests a meeting with her at his office in New York and won’t take no for an answer. Next thing she knows, there’s $10 million in her bank account and she’s on a private plane heading to a palace outside Moscow where she’s been engaged to perform off-the-record surgery on billionaire Oleg Ragoravich (new face) and his girlfriend, Nadia (new boobs). And…we’re off. A whirl of surgeries, chases, and escapes ensues as Maggie gradually comes to understand who these people are and what they have in mind for her, and how it connects to Marc and their missing friend and business partner, Trace Packer. She is aided by her delightful father-in-law, Porkchop, owner of a biker bar in New York City and a very handy guy to have on your team if you've run afoul of an international criminal organization. From the palace in Rublevka the action moves to Dubai and then Bordeaux, climaxing in a high-stakes illegal heart transplant. But wait—is Marc really dead? What happened to Trace? Who is Nadia really? Though these smoldering questions don’t quite catch fire, it's a good first try for Witherspoon.
Maybe not the most thrilling thriller, but the role of AI in coping with grief gives this novel pathos and interest.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781538774700
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Fast-moving and disturbingly plausible.
Robots may be the future of warfare in this final father-son DeMille collaboration.
In Camp Hayden, Army Maj. Roger Ames is found dead, his skull crushed. Chief Warrant Officers Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor, special agents of the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division, are sent to the Mojave Desert, “a.k.a. in the middle of nowhere,” to investigate. In this fictional military installation, Army Rangers conduct field training exercises with lethal autonomous weapons. These “dangerous new toys,” nicknamed “tin men,” may become the future of warfare if they can be programmed to distinguish between friend and foe. Anyway, the Rangers’ job is to train the tin men, not the other way around. They are AI-driven robotic prototypes called D-17s, but even prototypes can kill. Did a bot kill the major? And was there criminal liability or intent, or was it a tragic accident? Brodie and Taylor discover that not everyone loves these beasts, and they must find out if humans are programming them for mischief or even trying to set up the program for failure. Meanwhile, the bots have nicknames. Bot number 20 is Bucky, seen on a video as a “seven-foot-tall titanium machine with hands covered in blood and brain matter” that has “a face but no eyes, with hands but no skin, with a body but no soul.” As scary as these beasties are, Brodie and Taylor must also look at the humans at Camp Hayden, because they learn that the “machines don’t have motives….They have inputs and outputs,” which naturally come from human programmers. They have neither brains nor courage nor honor; they do have brute force, speed, and agility. Obviously, plenty goes haywire in this enjoyable yarn. It feels a bit too believable for comfort, and that’s to the DeMilles’ credit as storytellers. Nelson DeMille had begun this project with his son Alex, who had to finish it alone after his father’s death.
Fast-moving and disturbingly plausible.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781501101878
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
