A so-so plot with so-so characters makes for an uneventful read.
In a belated sequel to The Odessa File (1972), a re-emergent Nazi cult threatens to “finish what Hitler had started,” decades after it was thought to have been eliminated.
The person largely responsible for discovering and exposing the fascist ring was the star German journalist Peter Miller. All these years later, his 28-year-old grandson, Georg, a Hamburg reporter and podcaster, learns of the new Odessa (as the group is called) and their plans to upstage the country’s far-right political movement, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The first clue to their existence comes at a hospital following a terrorist attack at a football stadium. A grizzled old man with dementia confuses Georg with his father, Horst Miller, and snarls, “I killed you. You and the Untermensch whore you married.” Horst, a federal cop and intelligence officer, and his wife had supposedly died in a car accident. Posing (badly) as a doctor from the hospital in pursuit of the truth, a shaken Georg visits the ailing man’s family, which results in him being targeted himself. No one believes Georg’s claims about the Odessa except his grandfather, who talks him into importing a psycho killer from England as protection (read: someone who kills bad guys two at a time). Meanwhile, in a poorly developed subplot, Vanessa Price grows increasingly uncomfortable working as a staffer for a right-wing junior senator from Ohio with hopes for higher office. She finds herself surrounded by political operatives responsible for the death of the far better man the senator replaced, who are plotting an illegal government takeover. Suffice it to say that the panic attacks from which Vanessa suffers don’t get any better as the story proceeds. A middling thriller that commits the cardinal sin of using a terrorist attack as a background event, the late Forsyth’s co-write with Kent pales badly in comparison to classics like The Day of the Jackal (1971).
A so-so plot with so-so characters makes for an uneventful read.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9798217044658
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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
Another entertaining Aussie cozy for readers of Liane Moriarty—and fans of tough old ladies everywhere.
When her tabloid past comes back to haunt her, an 81-year-old Australian woman gets by with a little help from her friends.
When the neighbor child asks to interview her for a school project, Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick’s first line of defense is to shift little Persephone’s focus to another “old person” in their suburban Melbourne neighborhood, 93-year-old Ishaan Patel. Too late, says Persephone, he’s dead. This surprising information turns out to be true, as when she goes to check, Elsie finds the man sprawled lifeless on his kitchen floor. Her discovery of the body proves to be the first domino in a cascade of unwanted events, as her long-buried identity as Mad Mabel, the youngest convicted killer in Australian history, comes to light and creates a tidal wave of suspicion and media attention. Hepworth’s latest cozy domestic thriller uses the device of a YouTube documentary team determined to get Elsie/Mabel’s side of the story on the record for the first time, presented here in chapters alternating between Now and Then. In the present, cantankerous, sharp-tongued loner Elsie goes from having just one friend, the loyal Daphne Barton, to a web of close connections, including even a previously reviled dog she reluctantly inherits from the late Ishaan. In the past, a landslide of dead bodies and cruel twists of fate emerges to both justify and challenge the Mad Mabel moniker. If some aspects of the premise feel overfamiliar (cranky oldster’s frozen heart thawed by charming child), other elements are less well worn—a lovely pair of lesbians named Cess and Ness in the Then thread, for example. Those quirky suburban Australian neighborhoods just keep popping out the predators, bullies, shocking family secrets, and darkly charming surprises.
Another entertaining Aussie cozy for readers of Liane Moriarty—and fans of tough old ladies everywhere.Pub Date: April 21, 2026
ISBN: 9781250284549
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2026
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