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
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.
On the isle of Capri, Helen Lingate seeks revenge on the people responsible for her mother’s death 30 years earlier—her own family.
When Sarah Lingate fell to her death on Capri in 1992, she left behind a 3-year-old daughter, Helen, and a legacy as a gifted playwright; her favorite necklace of golden snakes was lost to the sea. Thirty years later, Helen, chafing at the restrictions she’s grown up under as a member of the old-money Lingate family, hatches a plan with her uncle Marcus’ assistant, Lorna Moreno, to blackmail her uncle and her father with that same necklace, which mysteriously entered her possession a few months before. The novel begins on Capri just after Lorna disappears, and then traces her steps from 36 hours earlier. Interweaving chapters from the points of view of Helen, Lorna, and Sarah—as well as, later, a few others—we learn how Sarah gradually became stifled by the constant pressure of keeping up appearances until she became inspired to write a play, Saltwater, that was a not-so-thinly veiled tell-all revealing dark Lingate family secrets. It was shortly after this that she fell to her death. The loss of her mother has come to define Helen’s life, and if she can use the necklace as leverage to escape her family, and maybe learn the truth along the way, she’ll take the risk. Lorna’s motives are both murkier and more straightforward—she’s never had money, and she’s got a chip on her shoulder about it, so splitting 10 million euros with Helen sounds like a way to discard her past and start fresh. These strong, conniving women drive the drama and the narrative, and they are captivating enough that as twist after twist begins to unfurl, the novel still feels character-driven. The end—well, the end shocks. And it’s well earned. By the time the sun sets on the gorgeous excess and rugged coast of Capri, lives will have been destroyed.
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593875551
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.
Second of the Walter Nash thrillers—following Nash Falls (2025)—in which the remade hero seeks vengeance.
Due to urgent circumstances, Nash has bulked himself up to become the “muscled and tatted fighting machine” now known as Dillon Hope. His antagonist is Victoria Steers, a global drug dealer who wants him dead. Not realizing his new identity, she enlists Hope to free her mother, Masuyo, from a prison in Myanmar. As an incentive, she shoots one of her associates and threatens to frame Hope for the murder unless he complies. She also wants him to find Nash. He in turn wants to kill Victoria to avenge the death of his innocent daughter, Maggie. “If I go down,” he muses, “I’m taking others with me. Starting with Victoria Steers.” He learns that Victoria had killed all her siblings to eliminate business competition. But as heartless as Victoria is, her mother, Masuyo, is even worse. In league with the Chinese government in a perverse plan to kill as many Americans as possible through fentanyl overdose, she shows contempt for Victoria for her perceived weaknesses. Readers won’t find many happy family relationships here: mother-daughter, father-son, husband-wife—all fraught. Hope’s employer, who accompanies him to Myanmar, is a billionaire chief executive with a dodgy past (i.e., probably killed his father). And there’s a mega-billionaire with an astronomical IQ and ditch-deep morals who, putting it mildly, does not have America’s best interests at heart. As a teenager, he’d defeated two world chess champions; as an adult, he regards his dealings with the world in terms of master chess moves. Only one character seems truly decent and credible—Hiroko, Victoria’s former nanny and lifelong companion, who provides Hope with valuable insights into the Steers’ background, which is partly Chinese. Searing grudges, simple evil, and not-so-simple misunderstandings carry the cast through this complex, action-packed plot. This sequel ties out the loose ends dangling in Nash Falls, which would be helpful to read first. To get to the requisite ending, though, Baldacci takes pains to surprise the reader. It works but often feels forced.
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781538758021
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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