A brisk thriller that asks intriguing questions.
In Duffy’s SF series-starter, a former boxer is recruited by a mysterious organization that sends operatives back in time to repair the future.
In 2020, Londoner Joe Cartigan is a down-on-his-luck boxer with a failing gym and deep regrets when a mysterious, anonymous text (“Locker 347. Waterloo Station. 23:00”) leads him to a small case containing a very nice watch that’s “probably worth more than his gym.” The next day, a woman named Kira arrives for a boxing lesson, but she already has impressive combat skills; she explains that the watch is actually a time-travel device called an Atomograph, which belongs to a secret organization with a job offer. All Joe has to do is follow some orders, go back in time, and make changes to the past that the organization deems necessary. It all seems like a gift, at first: a meaningful career, cool gadgets, the opportunity to use his skills for good, and even a romantic relationship with Kira. But as the missions get harder and more morally complex, Joe starts to wonder if his bosses are lying to him. Is the promise of changing the future worth the price? This book is the first entry in a series, so not all of Joe’s questions are answered, but his career as an agent appealingly unfurls like a video game: Kira, working dispatch, provides exposition; the fight scenes keep the blood pumping, complete with witty one-liners (“You took your time,” notes one of Joe’s targets when they meet). As in many other time-travel tales, the novel explores the ethical dilemma of killing one person to save another, and Joe faces increasingly dizzying versions of this problem. Overall, Duffy’s book is lean, and time certainly flies—which sometimes means that there isn’t time for very much emotional investigation. Kira, in particular, is a cipher: Is she trustworthy? There isn’t quite enough in the novel to evaluate this point. Similarly, the potential of Joe’s past regrets isn’t fully explored—at least not yet. Still, fans of time-travel tales and fight scenes will find this a satisfying read.
A brisk thriller that asks intriguing questions.Pub Date: June 30, 2026
ISBN: 9781036957438
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Sportsweek
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
One small step, no giant leaps.
Weir (The Martian, 2014) returns with another off-world tale, this time set on a lunar colony several decades in the future.
Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a 20-something deliveryperson, or “porter,” whose welder father brought her up on Artemis, a small multidomed city on Earth’s moon. She has dreams of becoming a member of the Extravehicular Activity Guild so she’ll be able to get better work, such as leading tours on the moon’s surface, and pay off a substantial personal debt. For now, though, she has a thriving side business procuring low-end black-market items to people in the colony. One of her best customers is Trond Landvik, a wealthy businessman who, one day, offers her a lucrative deal to sabotage some of Sanchez Aluminum’s automated lunar-mining equipment. Jazz agrees and comes up with a complicated scheme that involves an extended outing on the lunar surface. Things don’t go as planned, though, and afterward, she finds Landvik murdered. Soon, Jazz is in the middle of a conspiracy involving a Brazilian crime syndicate and revolutionary technology. Only by teaming up with friends and family, including electronics scientist Martin Svoboda, EVA expert Dale Shapiro, and her father, will she be able to finish the job she started. Readers expecting The Martian’s smart math-and-science problem-solving will only find a smattering here, as when Jazz figures out how to ignite an acetylene torch during a moonwalk. Strip away the sci-fi trappings, though, and this is a by-the-numbers caper novel with predictable beats and little suspense. The worldbuilding is mostly bland and unimaginative (Artemis apartments are cramped; everyone uses smartphonelike “Gizmos”), although intriguing elements—such as the fact that space travel is controlled by Kenya instead of the United States or Russia—do show up occasionally. In the acknowledgements, Weir thanks six women, including his publisher and U.K. editor, “for helping me tackle the challenge of writing a female narrator”—as if women were an alien species. Even so, Jazz is given such forced lines as “I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I’m a girl, so I’m allowed.”
One small step, no giant leaps.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-44812-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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