An intriguing premise, but this lacks the suspense and sharp plotting of the author's first novel. Call it sophomore slump.
An actress is ensnared in a web of secrets when she takes a job as a guest in a murder-mystery game at a sprawling country manor.
Sadie Langton has lost more than one part-time job recently, and acting gigs are hard to come by, so when her agent calls with an offer, she can hardly refuse. Besides, she doesn’t even have to audition, and it sounds like fun: She’ll don fancy vintage clothes and play Miss Lamb, a guest for a startup murder-mystery company in the first run-through of their game. The dazzling and remote Raven Hall, in the Fens of eastern England, boasts an appropriately dark history. But as the game begins and the champagne flows, Sadie grows increasingly uneasy, and she’s especially unnerved by the strangely personal details on her clue cards. When a member of their group disappears, Sadie fears that someone is playing a far more dangerous game than the one she was hired for. As in her first novel, The Au Pair (2019), Rous entwines the present with the past, and Sadie’s narrative alternates with an account of events that took place at Raven Hall in the late 1980s, as told by 14-year-old Beth Soames, an orphaned teen who is taken in by Leonora Averell, her partner, Markus Meyer, and their daughter, Nina. Passages that seem to take place between Sadie's and Beth’s stories are interspersed as well. Beth and Nina become fast friends, but things take a dark turn when a boy named Jonas comes between them, and Leonora and Markus ask Beth to play a very strange game. Beth and Nina’s story is absorbing, but Sadie’s narrative never pops. With this kind of setup, one might expect some Clue-esque hijinks at the looming mansion, but alas, it is not to be, and the confusing pile-on of revelations in the final act, as the author connects the seemingly disparate threads, might leave readers with whiplash.
An intriguing premise, but this lacks the suspense and sharp plotting of the author's first novel. Call it sophomore slump.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593201-60-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A standout in the series.
The sixth adventure of Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon explores the mysteries of human consciousness, the demonic projects of the CIA, and the city of Prague.
“Ladies and gentlemen...we are about to experience a sea change in our understanding of how the brain works, the nature of consciousness, and in fact…the very nature of reality itself.” But first—Langdon’s in love! Brown’s devoted readers first met brilliant noetic scientist Katherine Solomon in The Lost Symbol (2009); she’s back as a serious girlfriend, engaging the committed bachelor in a way not seen before. The book opens with the pair in a luxurious suite at the Four Seasons in Prague. It’s the night after Katherine has delivered the lecture quoted above, setting the theme for the novel, which features a plethora of real-life cases and anomalies that seem to support the notion that human consciousness is not localized inside the human skull. Brown’s talent for assembling research is also evident in this novel’s alter ego as a guidebook to Prague, whose history and attractions are described in great and glowing detail. Whether you appreciate or skim past the innumerable info dumps on these and other topics (Jewish folklore fans—the Golem is in the house!), it goes without saying that concision is not a goal in the Dan Brown editing process. Speaking of editing, the nearly 700-page book is dedicated to Brown’s editor, who seems to appear as a character—to put it in the italicized form used for Brownian insight, Jason Kaufman must be Jonas Faukman! A major subplot involves the theft of Katherine’s manuscript from the secure servers of Penguin Random House; the delightful Faukman continues to spout witty wisecracks even when blindfolded and hogtied. There’s no shortage of action, derring-do, explosions, high-tech torture machines, attempted and successful murders, and opportunities for split-second, last-minute escapes; good thing Langdon, this aging symbology wonk, never misses swimming his morning laps. Readers who are not already dyed-in-the-wool Langdonites may find themselves echoing the prof’s own conclusion regarding the credibility of all this paranormal hoo-ha: At some point, skepticism itself becomes irrational.
A standout in the series.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780385546898
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
Hokey plot, good fun.
A business executive becomes an unjustly wanted man.
Walter Nash attends his estranged father Tiberius’ funeral, where Ty’s Army buddy, Shock, rips into him for not being the kind of man the Vietnam vet Ty was. Instead, Nash is the successful head of acquisitions for Sybaritic Investments, where he earns a handsome paycheck that supports his wife, Judith, and his teenage daughter, Maggie. An FBI agent approaches Nash after the funeral and asks him to be a mole in his company, because the feds consider chief executive Rhett Temple “a criminal consorting with some very dangerous people.” It’s “a chance to be a hero,” the agent says, while admitting that Nash’s personal and financial risks are immense. Indeed, readers soon find Temple and a cohort standing over a fresh corpse and wondering what to do with it. Temple is not an especially talented executive, and he frets that his hated father, the chairman of the board, will eventually replace him with Nash. (Father-son relationships are not glorified in this tale.) Temple is cartoonishly rotten. He answers to a mysterious woman in Asia, whom he rightly fears. He kills. He beds various women including Judith, whom he tries to turn against Nash. The story’s dramatic turn follows Maggie’s kidnapping, where Nash is wrongly accused. Believing Nash’s innocence, Shock helps him change completely with intense exercise, bulking up and tattooing his body, and learning how to fight and kill. Eventually he looks nothing like the dweeb who’d once taken up tennis instead of football, much to Ty’s undying disgust. Finding the victim and the kidnappers becomes his sole mission. As a child watching his father hunt, Nash could never have killed a living thing. But with his old life over—now he will kill, and he will take any risks necessary. His transformation is implausible, though at least he’s not green like the Incredible Hulk. Loose ends abound by the end as he ignores a plea to “not get on that damn plane,” so a sequel is a necessity.
Hokey plot, good fun.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781538757987
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
