A crackling good thriller by father and daughter.
A death in Colorado and a Vatican visitor highlight this sequel to Extinction (2024).
In Rome, a thief steals a fragment of the “true skull” of John the Baptist, and the pope wants the venerated object returned. The assignment falls to Brother Niall Armagh, a former law enforcement chaplain in Chicago. Church authorities know who took it, and Armagh must travel to San Francisco to effect its return. Meanwhile, in Colorado, state Bureau of Investigation agent Frankie Cash and Eagle County Sheriff James Colcord work a homicide case in the remote Flat Tops Wilderness, where trouble bubbles—the corpse of Willy Grooms is found in his shack with coins covering the hollows where his eyes had been. His mouth had been forced open, but the only bleeding came from a mangled foot. The autopsy yields surprising results and a critical but puzzling clue. Grooms had been tortured using tools dating back to the 17th century, such as the Spanish boot and the speculum oris. This is no ordinary murder, so a challenging investigation lies ahead. “Sapiens supremacists” are quick to blame murderous, de-extincted Neanders that may be running loose. Brother Armagh thinks his search for a holy relic may be related to the murder case, so he offers to help the investigators. But his true mission must remain secret, even from ultraconservative local priest Timothy Moore. Cash and Colcord are smart and brave but differ in temperament, Cash being “bossy, forceful, and irritating as hell,” and prone to getting in trouble with her boss. For example, her unprofessional outburst at Father Moore would be a job killer if she weren’t so competent. She and Colcord watch each other’s backs as the danger level steadily mounts to a climactic scene where either or both could die. Threaded into the plot are a company named Paradox, alien artifacts, and John the Baptist’s DNA.
A crackling good thriller by father and daughter.Pub Date: April 21, 2026
ISBN: 9781250413901
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
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 tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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