TOM CLANCY UNDER FIRE

Name: TOM CLANCY UNDER FIRE
Author: Grant Blackwood
ISBN: 978-0-399-17575-6

by Grant Blackwood ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2015

A complex international adventure that's less military hardware–centric than Clancy solo, but Blackwood uses "notional,"...

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Clancy’s gone, but Blackwood (Dead or Alive, 2010, etc.) continues his international action-adventure series by dispatching Jack Ryan Jr. into espionage’s "wilderness of mirrors."

The elder Ryan is now president of the United States. The younger Ryan’s no warrior-statesman. He works instead for Hendley Associates—aka The Campus—a supposed investment group using profits to finance a civilian contractorlike CIA. In Tehran, Ryan’s scoping things out after the election of a moderate president. He meets close school friend Seth Gregory, who’s supposedly in Iran on oil business. The next morning, Ryan is informed by two shadowy characters that Seth has disappeared. He learns that Seth is CIA, and Seth’s father, Paul, was a Cold War "golden boy" of the CIA’s Intelligence Directorate. Paul was branded a traitor and committed suicide. Seth intends to use one of his father’s plans to free Dagestan from a Putin-parody Valeri Volodin, the Russian Federation president. Blackwood’s character development is drowned out by page upon page of pistol and rifle fire—and computer/cellphone phishing—from Iran to Dagestan. Settings are green-screen backdrop maps. Blackwood introduces beautiful Iranian Ysabel Kashani, who rescues (and beds!) Jack. Bad guys are rogue British agent Wellesley, willing to kill to foil Seth’s plan and maintain stability, and Russian Oleg Pechkin, who manipulates both sides under multiple names but mostly offstage. The narrative is continuous action and derring-do, with Jack relying on instantaneous satellite-phone links home to Hendley for intel, all while flying to Scotland to rescue a Dagestan leader’s daughter from kidnappers and then knocking out a "Borisoglebsk-2…specifically designed to take down satellite and GPS systems" to ensure the Dagestan democratic revolution reaches social media.

A complex international adventure that's less military hardware–centric than Clancy solo, but Blackwood uses "notional," which fans will know is homage to the maestro.

Pub Date: June 16, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-399-17575-6

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2015

Categories:

SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE

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NO BAD DEED

by Heather Chavez ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020

Chavez delivers a fraught if flawed page-turner that attempts too many twists.

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A good Samaritan incurs a psychopath’s wrath in this debut thriller.

Veterinarian Cassie Larkin is heading home after a 12-hour shift when someone darts in front of her car, causing her to dump her energy drink. As she pulls over to mop up the mess, her headlights illuminate a couple having a physical altercation. Cassie calls 911, but before help arrives, the man tosses the woman down an embankment. Ignoring the dispatcher’s instructions, Cassie exits the vehicle and intervenes, preventing the now-unconscious woman’s murder. With sirens wailing in the distance, the man warns Cassie: “Let her die, and I’ll let you live.” He then scrambles back to the road and flees in Cassie’s van. Using mug shots, Cassie identifies the thief and would-be killer as Carver Sweet, who is wanted for poisoning his wife. The Santa Rosa police assure Cassie of her safety, but the next evening, her husband, Sam, vanishes while trick-or-treating with their 6-year-old daughter, Audrey. Hours later, he sends texts apologizing and confessing to an affair, but although it’s true that Sam and Cassie have been fighting, she suspects foul play—particularly given the previous night’s events. Cassie files a report with the cops, but they dismiss her concerns, leaving Cassie to investigate on her own. After a convoluted start, Chavez embarks on a paranoia-fueled thrill ride, escalating the stakes while exploiting readers’ darkest domestic fears. The far-fetched plot lacks cohesion and relies too heavily on coincidence to be fully satisfying, but the reader will be invested in learning the Larkin family’s fate through to the too-pat conclusion.

Chavez delivers a fraught if flawed page-turner that attempts too many twists.

Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-06-293617-2

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019

Categories:

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THE NEXT ACCIDENT

by Lisa Gardner ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 4, 2001

Consistent suspense stumbles only in the final confrontation. Seasoned, older crime-fighter Quincy is wooden, Connor...

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Gardner debuts in hardcover with a cool and mostly accomplished psychokiller tale, again following the adventures of FBI agent Pierce Quincy and private-eye Lorraine “Rainie” Connor.

Having just set herself up as a p.i. in Portland, Oregon, former cop Connor is wondering how she'll pay her bills when Quincy knocks on her door. The pair shared previous adventures, and now Quincy wants to hire Connor to reinvestigate what seems to have been the accidental death of his daughter Amanda: a reformed alcoholic who supposedly fell off the wagon, ran over a pedestrian, and then drove her Ford Explorer into a tree in Virginia. But her father thinks the death may have been arranged. Just as Connor is uncovering some clues, Quincy's ex-wife Bethie meets a handsome stranger in Philadelphia and is horribly murdered. It doesn't take long for Quincy (whose unlisted phone number is mysteriously accessible to many of the felons he's locked up) to figure out that someone from his past is out to get him and his family. The action shifts to New York, where Quincy's other daughter, Kimberly, is studying criminology and seeing a psychiatrist to try to make sense of her sister's and mother's deaths. Quincy is almost paralyzed with guilt: his zealous attention to FBI duties ruined his marriage and might have caused Amanda’s alcoholism. He and Connor believe that the psychokiller, who is a master of disguise, adept at forgery, and unusually knowledgeable about FBI procedures (could it be a jealous fellow agent Quincy inadvertently humiliated long ago?), will go after Kimberly next. Then a phone call reveals that Quincy’s father has been kidnapped from his nursing home by someone masquerading as Quincy.

Consistent suspense stumbles only in the final confrontation. Seasoned, older crime-fighter Quincy is wooden, Connor delightfully brash and spunky.