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
With any luck, the Nazi hunting will go on for a sequel or two.
Nazi hunters team up with a former bomber pilot to bring a killer known as the Huntress to justice.
In postwar Europe, Ian, a British war correspondent with a vendetta, and his American sidekick, Tony, have set up a shoestring operation to catch the war criminals who seem to be not just slipping, but swarming through the cracks. The same set of circumstances that led Ian to enter a marriage of convenience with Nina, a Siberian former bomber pilot, has also given both common cause: to chase down Lorelei Vogt, a Nazi known as the Huntress, who, by her lakeside lair in Poland, trapped and killed refugees, many of them children. Lorelei’s mother, blandished by Tony, reveals that her daughter immigrated to Boston. Meanwhile, Jordan, an aspiring photographer living in Boston with her widowed antiques-dealer father, Dan, welcomes a new stepmother, Austrian refugee Anneliese, and her 4-year-old daughter, Ruth. Jordan soon grows suspicious of Dan’s new bride: A candid shot captures Anneliese’s furtive “cruel” glance—and there’s that swastika charm hidden in her wedding bouquet. However, Anneliese manages to quell Jordan’s suspicions by confessing part of the truth: that Ruth is not really her daughter but a war orphan. That Jordan’s suspicions are so easily allayed strains credulity, especially since the reader is almost immediately aware that Anneliese is the Huntress in disguise. The suspense lies in how long it’s going to take Ian and company to track her down and what the impact will be on Jordan and Ruth when they do. Well-researched and vivid segments are interspersed detailing Nina’s backstory as one of Russia’s sizable force of female combat pilots (dubbed The Night Witches by the Germans), establishing her as a fierce yet vulnerable antecedent to Lisbeth Salander. Quinn’s language is evocative of the period, and her characters are good literary company.
With any luck, the Nazi hunting will go on for a sequel or two.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-274037-3
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A compulsively readable account of a little-known yet extraordinary historical figure—Lawhon’s best book to date.
A historical novel explores the intersection of love and war in the life of Australian-born World War II heroine Nancy Grace Augusta Wake.
Lawhon’s (I Was Anastasia, 2018, etc.) carefully researched, lively historical novels tend to be founded on a strategic chronological gambit, whether it’s the suspenseful countdown to the landing of the Hindenberg or the tale of a Romanov princess told backward and forward at once. In her fourth novel, she splits the story of the amazing Nancy Wake, woman of many aliases, into two interwoven strands, both told in first-person present. One begins on Feb. 29th, 1944, when Wake, code-named Hélène by the British Special Operations Executive, parachutes into Vichy-controlled France to aid the troops of the Resistance, working with comrades “Hubert” and “Denden”—two of many vividly drawn supporting characters. “I wake just before dawn with a full bladder and the uncomfortable realization that I am surrounded on all sides by two hundred sex-starved Frenchmen,” she says. The second strand starts eight years earlier in Paris, where Wake is launching a career as a freelance journalist, covering early stories of the Nazi rise and learning to drink with the hardcore journos, her purse-pooch Picon in her lap. Though she claims the dog “will be the great love of [her] life,” she is about to meet the hunky Marseille-based industrialist Henri Fiocca, whose dashing courtship involves French 75 cocktails, unexpected appearances, and a drawn-out seduction. As always when going into battle, even the ones with guns and grenades, Nancy says “I wear my favorite armor…red lipstick.” Both strands offer plenty of fireworks and heroism as they converge to explain all. The author begs forgiveness in an informative afterword for all the drinking and swearing. Hey! No apologies necessary!
A compulsively readable account of a little-known yet extraordinary historical figure—Lawhon’s best book to date.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-385-54468-9
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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