Nefarious forces try to rig American elections in this highly plausible political thriller.
In Wisconsin, investigative reporter Jack Sharpe loses his job reporting for Republic News on TV. Saddled with a noncompete agreement, he freelances for newspapers and really needs a big story. Luckily, Tori Justice wants to tell him hers. She was the voter file manager for a local judge who won a special election even though “there’s no conceivable way” he could have won. Voter files are even “better than polling,” because they contain a huge amount of personal data on every voter collected by state and national parties, from voting records to magazine subscriptions to the ads people click on. Perhaps someone has hacked the voter files and rigged the election, but who? How? Why? Readers soon learn that this is a test case for a scheme that’s “a lot bigger than Wisconsin,” involving “at least one Albanian mobster” and other foreign criminals who intend to rig a presidential election. Their methods will be undetectable, so losing campaigns will be written off as having been run by incompetents. But when Justice exports the Wisconsin data for Sharpe, the European perps are still monitoring the computer, so they know someone could be on to them. Sharpe is sharp, so he knows that whoever is behind this is dangerous. Indeed, there are enough murders, tension, and fast pacing to check this story off as a thriller. Readers likely won’t find many surprises, though, as the plot follows a predictable path. And while Sharpe isn’t dull, he’s no superstar either. He’s just a good guy who gets the job done.
Enjoyable, timely, and realistic.Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-08393-2
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Categories: ESPIONAGE | POLITICAL, MILITARY & TERRORISM | SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Now that Coben’s added politics to his heady brew, expect sex and religion to join the mix.
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Coben’s latest darkest-suburbs thriller sets a decidedly offbeat detective on the trail of a crime with overtones unmistakably redolent of once and future presidential elections.
Wilde is called Wilde because nobody’s known his real name from the moment a pair of hikers found him foraging for himself in Ramapo Mountain State Forest 24 years ago. Now over 40, he’s had experience as both a lost boy and a private investigator. That makes him an obvious person to help when his godson, Sweet Water High School student Matthew Crimstein, expresses concern to his grandmother, attorney Hester Crimstein, that his bullied classmate Naomi Pine has gone missing. Matthew doesn’t really want anyone to help. He doesn’t even want anyone to notice his agitation. But Hester, taking the time from her criminal defense of financial consultant Simon Greene (Run Away, 2019) to worm the details out of him, asks Wilde to lend a hand, and sure enough, Wilde, unearthing an unsavory backstory that links Naomi to bullying classmate Crash Maynard, whose TV producer father, Dash Maynard, is close friends with reality TV star–turned–presidential hopeful Rusty Eggers, finds Naomi hale and hearty. Everything’s hunky-dory for one week, and then she disappears again. And this time, so does Crash after a brief visit to Matthew in which he tearfully confesses his guilt about the bad stuff he did to Naomi. This second disappearance veers into more obviously criminal territory with the arrival of a ransom note that demands, not money, but the allegedly incriminating videotapes of Rusty Eggers that Dash and Delia Maynard have had squirreled away for 30 years. The tapes link Rusty to a forgotten and forgettable homicide and add a paranoid new ripped-from-the-headlines dimension to the author’s formidable range. Readers who can tune out all the subplots will find the kidnappers easy to spot, but Coben finds room for three climactic surprises, one of them a honey.
Now that Coben’s added politics to his heady brew, expect sex and religion to join the mix.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5387-4814-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | GENERAL & DOMESTIC THRILLER | CRIME & LEGAL THRILLER
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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. 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER
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