A crime-fiction writer ventures into James Dickey territory, but doesn’t quite deliver.
When fireman Zak Polanski helps free Nadine Newcastle from her wrecked Lexus SUV, little does he know what else he’s letting loose. Not that prior knowledge would have mattered. Had those pent-up forces been twice as fractious, twice as malevolent, it wouldn’t have changed the fact that Nadine was so very pretty, so desperately scared, and that Zak found himself drawn to her beyond his power to resist. There are, true enough, counterbalancing facts that for Zak become immediately complicating and life-altering. For starters, Nadine is rich, and blue-collar Zak despises rich people. More importantly, she has an obsessively vengeful ex-boyfriend, and thereby hangs the bulk of this tale, a tale of mindless savagery played out in western Washington’s Cascade Mountains. By avocation, Zak is a passionate racer of mountain bikes. In company with four cyclist friends, he’s been planning a three day expedition that will cover 200 miles over extremely rugged, little-traveled terrain, a trek “similar to running three or four marathons back-to-back.” Eagerly, they embark—until William Potter III (Scooter), and his band of overprivileged brothers, turn up to rewrite the scenario drastically. For what the jealous, almost certainly sociopathic Scooter has in mind is all-out war, us against them, the deserving-rich against the loser-lesser classes, and if in the process a corpse or two happens to litter the landscape, what else is an enemy for? Suddenly, to Zak, the idea of civilization begins to seem almost frivolous as he struggles to survive the “primal threat” embodied by Scooter.
Shamus winner Emerson (The Smoke Room, 2007, etc.) gets a lot right here: strong characters, gripping action scenes. But the book is just too long and repetitious, and the suspense level suffers accordingly.Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-345-49299-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2007
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | THRILLER | GENERAL & DOMESTIC THRILLER
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Rumors of lost Egyptian treasure spark high adventure in this 17th in the NUMA series featuring oceanographer Kurt Austin and his crew (Sea of Greed, 2018, etc.).
Over 3,000 years ago, grave robbers sail away with loot from a pharaoh’s tomb. In 1927, Jake Melbourne and his plane disappear in his attempt at a trans-Atlantic flight. In the present day, arms merchants known as the Bloodstone Group have taken to stealing antiquities. They are looking for a “treasure both vast and glorious” that hieroglyphics say was shipped down the Nile and out of Egypt, perhaps even west across the Atlantic. (Holy scurvy! That must’ve been a lot of hard rowing!) The criminals are known to MI5 as “very dangerous people" and "merchants selling death.” Perfectly willing to kill everyone in their way, they are aided by mechanical crows and Fydor and Xandra, nasty sibling assassins jointly called the Toymaker. Such are the foes faced by Austin and his team from the National Underwater and Marine Agency. Of course, Austin has no interest in profit; he will gladly leave the ancient riches wherever they are. Action arrives early and often, and the failed pre-Lindbergh flight fits in neatly. Cussler and Brown concoct a nifty plot with disparate, sometimes over-the-top twists that will make even hardcore adventure fans say “Wow!” Expect claustrophobic gunfights, aerial combat, a life-threatening flood, messages from the dead, coffins of gold—and a vintage classic car, because why not? “We’re going to steal the greatest deposit of Egyptian treasure the world has ever known,” brags the evil mastermind. But he’ll have to climb over the series hero’s dead body first, which—no plot spoiler here—ain’t gonna happen.
This is fast-paced, nonstop fun. Cussler fans will gobble it up.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-08308-6
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | CRIME & LEGAL THRILLER
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Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | SUSPENSE
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