Like matryoshka dolls, a many-layered, inviting treat.
In this thriller, the identities of two Russians tied to a deadly explosion in a small Midwestern town must be kept secret—even from the Russian authorities.
In Randall’s tale, a string of power outages in Maise, Iowa, results in the local ethanol plant exploding. The blast kills 150 residents and sends 400 more to burn centers. On the case is Alex Polonia, a former Cleveland police detective now working for an international security firm. Her boss, Christopher Campbell, tells her the doomed power grid had an easily hackable security system. He said one of the National Security Agency “guys joked that a child could have found a way into the system.” Actually, it was two children—twins Pavel and Gavril Sokolov. Widowed Ilya Sokolov, who teaches advanced computer programming at the St. Petersburg Computer Institute in Russia, discovers that his brilliant, autistic 10-year-old twins used his computer to successfully break through security programs and initiate the Iowa power outages. Knowing his government will mete out punishment once it discovers his family’s connection to the explosion, he anonymously emails the Maise library to say the catastrophe was a mistake. He adds: “I need help. They are after us.” Alex’s firm is brought in to “rescue” the accidental terrorists because CIA and FBI involvement would easily be identified by Russian agencies. Alex is paired for the assignment with Micah Lynch, who lived in Russia before serving in the United States Army Special Ops. Within days, Micah and Alex, posing as a vacationing couple in St. Petersburg, try to identify the masterminds behind the Iowa blast before the Russians do. Randall’s engaging novel is the third installment of a series starring the adventurous Alex, following Venice Black (2018) and Saigon Red (2019). The question of where to place blame when talented children unwittingly do horrifying things that cause deaths and injuries makes this globe-spanning tale a thoughtful read. It’s also an exciting one, with a surprising and intricate plot. Alex’s drawn-out backstory bogs down the first chapter, but after that, pistols, speeding cars, and vodka on the rocks make for fast-turning pages.
Like matryoshka dolls, a many-layered, inviting treat.Pub Date: June 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9987083-6-2
Page Count: 291
Publisher: Windsor Hill Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.
A woman’s life takes a stunning turn and a wall comes tumbling down in this tense Cold War spy drama.
In Berlin in 1989, the wall is about to crumble, and Anne Simpson’s husband, Stefan Koehler, goes missing. She is a translator working with refugees from the communist bloc, and he is a piano tuner who travels around Europe with orchestras. Or so he claims. German intelligence service the BND and America’s CIA bring her in for questioning, wrongly thinking she’s protecting him. Soon she begins to learn more about Stefan, whom she had met in the Netherlands a few years ago. She realizes he’s a “gregarious musician with easy charm who collected friends like a beachcomber collects shells, keeping a few, discarding most.” Police find his wallet in a canal and his prized zither in nearby bushes but not his body. Has he been murdered? What’s going on? And why does the BND care? If Stefan is alive, he’s in deep trouble, because he’s believed to be working for the Stasi. She’s told “the dead have a way of showing up. It is only the living who hide.” And she’s quite believable when she wonders, “Can you grieve for someone who betrayed you?” Smart and observant, she notes that the reaction by one of her interrogators is “as false as his toupee. Obvious, uncalled for, and easily put on.” Lurking behind the scenes is the Matchmaker, who specializes in finding women—“American. Divorced. Unhappy,” and possibly having access to Western secrets—who will fall for one of his Romeos. Anne is the perfect fit. “The matchmaker turned love into tradecraft,” a CIA agent tells her. But espionage is an amoral business where duty trumps decency, and “deploring the morality of spies is like deploring violence in boxers.” It’s a sentiment John le Carré would have endorsed, but Anne may have the final word.
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64313-865-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.
Coulter’s treasured FBI agents take on two cases marked by danger and personal involvement.
Dillon Savitch and his wife, Lacey Sherlock, have special abilities that have served them well in law enforcement (Paradox, 2018, etc.). But that doesn't prevent Sherlock’s car from hitting a running man after having been struck by a speeding SUV that runs a red light. The runner, though clearly injured, continues on his way and disappears. Not so the SUV driver, a security engineer for the Bexholt Group, which has ties to government agencies. Sherlock’s own concussion causes memory loss so severe that she doesn’t recognize Savitch or remember their son, Sean. The whole incident seems more suspicious when a blood test from the splatter of the man Sherlock hit reveals that he’s Justice Cummings, an analyst for the CIA. The agency’s refusal to cooperate makes Savitch certain that Bexholt is involved in a deep-laid plot. Meanwhile, Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith is visiting friends who run a cafe in the touristy Virginia town of Gaffers Ridge. Hammersmith, who has psychic abilities, is taken aback when he hears in his mind a woman’s cry for help. Reporter Carson DeSilva, who came to the area to interview a Nobel Prize winner, also has psychic abilities, and she overhears the thoughts of Rafer Bodine, a young man who has apparently kidnapped and possibly murdered three teenage girls. Unluckily, she blurts out her thoughts, and she’s snatched and tied up in a cellar by Bodine. Bodine may be a killer, but he’s also the nephew of the sheriff and the son of the local bigwig. So the sheriff arrests Hammersmith and refuses to accept his FBI credentials. Bodine's mother has psychic powers strong enough to kill, but she meets her match in Hammersmith, DeSilva, Savitch, and Sherlock.
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9365-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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