A thickly detailed political thriller that skimps on character development.
In the last gasp of a post-colonial nation, its sultan reflects on the tragedies and horrors of his rule.
On a rainy night in 1947, the Irani Palace of the province of Sipheristan hosts a grand celebration, complete with drinks, dancing, and many beautiful contenders for the heart of its crown prince. His father, the Sultan Aslan, sits aside from the celebration, reflecting on the years of his rule and his service to both the province and the British. The colonial support that has allowed Sipheristan to expand and protect itself is withdrawing, bordering nations seek to absorb it, and America and the Soviet Union eye its natural resources. Furthermore, the Paradise Valley, as travelers have long called the area, hosts a diverse population of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Hindus, their differences leading to increased sectarian violence. Mounting debt, challenges from charismatic yet cruel figures like Genghis Rasul, renewed Islamic conservatism, and family drama, such as that caused by the Sultan’s late, mentally unstable queen, have eroded trust and power. The rebels are at the door, quite literally, and Aslan looks back on his losses: his love affair with Swiss pilot Eva Piazinni, his 13-year-old daughter’s suicide and his son’s death fighting the Japanese, the murder and torture he inflicted on family, the political and socio-economic maneuvering with corrupt British leaders—all for his home. Chowdhury’s novel, well researched and well reasoned, crafts a fictitious country with all the political intrigue of any post-colonial nation after World War II. The impacts of droughts, insurgencies, love affairs, and scintillating land reforms are exactingly described. Sipheristan itself exudes culture, enveloping the reader in elaborate dances, architecture, and folklore, like the cursed Noor diamond. Yet for all this detail, even at its most engrossing the book tends to be fairly dry, written more like a history book than the epic novel its large cast and sweeping narrative promise. The intricacies of any economic or political decision are painstakingly broken down, but cast conflicts, such as the death of the crown prince’s mother and its effect on him or Aslan’s duality as a sympathetic leader, despite his willingness to torture children, go largely unexplored.
A thickly detailed political thriller that skimps on character development.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5069-0980-6
Page Count: 234
Publisher: First Edition Design Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An irresistible hook, endless intricate complications, plucked heartstrings aplenty, and an inevitably disappointing windup.
Twenty-two years after waking up in Spain fouled with the blood of his lover of five days, an unlicensed investigator sees her alive once more in this dizzying standalone mystery.
Or maybe not. There’s no indication that anyone’s seen the woman Sami Kierce knew only as Anna since their last night together, which ended when he woke up in her bed clutching a bloody knife. And although the woman who crashes No Shit, Sherlock, the class Sami’s run for wannabe investigators ever since getting bounced from the NYPD after a rooftop pursuit left his quarry dead, looks just like Anna—well, it’s been over two decades, and all the evidence points to her actually being Victoria Belmond, the daughter of self-made millionaire Archie Belmond. Victoria has her own troubled history. She vanished from a New Year’s Eve party she was co-hosting three years before Sami’s fling with Anna and wasn’t seen again, except maybe by Sami, for 11 long years. Already unsettled because Tad Grayson, who was convicted on Sami’s testimony of murdering Nicole Brett, Sami’s fiancée, has been released because the court can’t trust the testimony of a dishonored cop, Sami meets with Belmond, who offers to share some personal information with him along with $100,000 if he signs a nondisclosure agreement and then offers half a million to dig up the truth behind Victoria’s presumed kidnapping. Just what is the truth about Anna? As Sami puts it: “She was Victoria. And she was not.”
An irresistible hook, endless intricate complications, plucked heartstrings aplenty, and an inevitably disappointing windup.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781538756355
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
A weird, wild ride.
Celebrity scandal and a haunted lake drive the narrative in this bestselling author’s latest serving of subtly ironic suspense.
Sager’s debut, Final Girls (2017), was fun and beautifully crafted. His most recent novels—Home Before Dark (2020) and Survive the Night (2021) —have been fun and a bit rickety. His new novel fits that mold. Narrator Casey Fletcher grew up watching her mother dazzle audiences, and then she became an actor herself. While she never achieves the “America’s sweetheart” status her mother enjoyed, Casey makes a career out of bit parts in movies and on TV and meatier parts onstage. Then the death of her husband sends her into an alcoholic spiral that ends with her getting fired from a Broadway play. When paparazzi document her substance abuse, her mother exiles her to the family retreat in Vermont. Casey has a dry, droll perspective that persists until circumstances overwhelm her, and if you’re getting a Carrie Fisher vibe from Casey Fletcher, that is almost certainly not an accident. Once in Vermont, she passes the time drinking bourbon and watching the former supermodel and the tech mogul who live across the lake through a pair of binoculars. Casey befriends Katherine Royce after rescuing her when she almost drowns and soon concludes that all is not well in Katherine and Tom’s marriage. Then Katherine disappears….It would be unfair to say too much about what happens next, but creepy coincidences start piling up, and eventually, Casey has to face the possibility that maybe some of the eerie legends about Lake Greene might have some truth to them. Sager certainly delivers a lot of twists, and he ventures into what is, for him, new territory. Are there some things that don’t quite add up at the end? Maybe, but asking that question does nothing but spoil a highly entertaining read.
A weird, wild ride.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18319-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
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