A well-plotted Revolutionary War thriller with a high-stakes plot.
In Picard’s historical novel, an occupied colonial city becomes the stage for an intricate tale of espionage and civilian resistance during the American Revolution.
The city of Newport in the Rhode Island colony was once celebrated for its cosmopolitan wealth, but now it’s a shell of its former self. A British blockade has strangled trade, soldiers have dismantled homes for firewood, and families have scattered into exile. On Benjamin Hazard’s 14th birthday, he sees a British sentry surveilling the family. His parents, William and Mary, are merchants who’ve long sacrificed prosperity for principle, rejecting involvement with enslavers and aiding the vulnerable. After British soldiers raid their shop, the family abandons any hope of remaining outside the conflict. Mary assembles an intelligence network of women, while William uses leverage and deception to deal with the British authorities. Their daughter, Bridget, has secretly charted enemy patrols for years, and Benjamin becomes entangled in a perilous deal with a British counterintelligence officer. Beyond the Hazard household, the novel offers an expansive portrait of occupied Newport. Duchess Quamino, an enslaved caterer, gathers information on the British officers she serves, at the risk of separation from her children. Her husband, John, a free Black sailor, works as a privateer to earn enough money to save his family from enslavement; he works for Capt. Harry Sherman, whose campaign against British shipping is fueled by patriotism and personal loss. As a French fleet approaches, British defenses tighten, and a devastating hurricane tears across the Atlantic. Over the course of this historical novel, Picard’s greatest achievement is his complex depiction of espionage: Mary’s intelligence network, Bridget’s coded ledgers, and William’s cautious maneuvering all possess an operational realism that effectively distinguishes the novel from more conventional Revolutionary War fiction. The large ensemble cast can be overwhelming at times, though, and the prose tends to stay on the surface of the action, instead of delving into the characters’ interiority. Still, Duchess and John, who are based on real historical figures and have more to lose than the rest of the cast, are the most engaging characters by a wide margin.
A well-plotted Revolutionary War thriller with a high-stakes plot.Pub Date: May 1, 2026
ISBN: 9798234022301
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dragon House
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days...
In 1876, professor Edward Cope takes a group of students to the unforgiving American West to hunt for dinosaur fossils, and they make a tremendous discovery.
William Jason Tertullius Johnson, son of a shipbuilder and beneficiary of his father’s largess, isn’t doing very well at Yale when he makes a bet with his archrival (because every young man has one): accompany “the bone professor” Othniel Marsh to the West to dig for dinosaur fossils or pony up $1,000, but Marsh will only let Johnson join if he has a skill they can use. They need a photographer, so Johnson throws himself into the grueling task of learning photography, eventually becoming proficient. When Marsh and the team leave without him, he hitches a ride with another celebrated paleontologist, Marsh’s bitter rival, Edward Cope. Despite warnings about Indian activity, into the Judith badlands they go. It’s a harrowing trip: they weather everything from stampeding buffalo to back-breaking work, but it proves to be worth it after they discover the teeth of what looks to be a giant dinosaur, and it could be the discovery of the century if they can only get them back home safely. When the team gets separated while transporting the bones, Johnson finds himself in Deadwood and must find a way to get the bones home—and stay alive doing it. The manuscript for this novel was discovered in Crichton’s (Pirate Latitudes, 2009, etc.) archives by his wife, Sherri, and predates Jurassic Park (1990), but if readers are looking for the same experience, they may be disappointed: it’s strictly formulaic stuff. Famous folk like the Earp brothers make appearances, and Cope and Marsh, and the feud between them, were very real, although Johnson is the author’s own creation. Crichton takes a sympathetic view of American Indians and their plight, and his appreciation of the American West, and its harsh beauty, is obvious.
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days of American paleontology.Pub Date: May 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-247335-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
A smart and engaging literary thriller that bears down too hard on its themes.
At the home of an eccentric millionaire, a woman discovers out-of-the-ordinary events.
When her husband is invited to finish writing his book at the island home of a reclusive millionaire, Anna is relieved: If he sells it, they’ll be able to keep their Bronx apartment and she won’t have to go back to work at the laundry. It’s 1918, and Charles Fort—based on a real-life figure—is hard at work on a book about unexplained phenomena, such as objects falling from a clear sky: frogs, for example, or even bits of flesh, or blood. If Anna has doubts about the legitimacy of his research, she keeps them to herself. In any case, when the millionaire Claude Arkel offers the couple a place to stay for the winter, they eagerly accept. Almost immediately, though, things seem to be off. Arkel runs a school for wayward girls, and three students are missing. Meanwhile, there’s no sign of Arkel himself, and with the Spanish flu raging in the outside world, the Forts are stuck in quarantine. Bakis’ latest novel has the pacing and suspense of a smart literary thriller: It’s almost impossible to put down once you’ve started it. But Bakis can be heavy-handed in her treatment of the themes that undergird her story—in this case, women who support ambitious men. That’s not to say Bakis’ case doesn’t hold water, but she strikes the same note again and again in a way that is more repetitive than satisfying. So, for example, when the Forts first arrive on Arkel’s island, and Charles observes that the grand house is “modeled on the Château de Chambord in the Val de Loire” and Anna responds, “I know, I’m the one who showed you the article,” the mansplaining moment isn’t nearly as funny as it was apparently intended to be; it's just frustrating, in a teeth-grinding way.
A smart and engaging literary thriller that bears down too hard on its themes.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9781324093534
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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