Action-filled revenge fantasy for desk-bound Terminators.
In the latest ground-war thriller from Coyle (They Are Soldiers, 2004, etc.) and Tillman (Dauntless, 1992, etc.), al-Qaeda sends disease-injected human time bombs to the Great Satan, so the Great Satan sends a private commando force to Pakistan to put a stop to the nonsense.
Who you gonna call when political correctness means you can’t use profiling or when your own army is stretched to the limit in Iraq? Strategic Solutions, Inc. Located conveniently in the Northern Virginia suburbs of D.C. and staffed with the baddest, toughest, smartest, most disaffected ex-servicemen available in the U.S., SSI and its Naval Academy ex-admiral founder Mike Derringer stand ready to take on those odd jobs efficiently and on time. Time being of the essence when evil veterinarian-turned-viral-assassin Dr. Ali is busily sending out already fatally ill jihadists loaded with the deadly Marburg filovirus, hoping to wipe out as many Crusaders and other infidels as possible. Derringer assembles a crack testosteronic team to send to Pakistan to identify, hunt down and eradicate Dr. Ali and his henchmen. The team’s special secret weapon is beautiful, rich, rock-climbing Dr. Carolyn Padgett-Smith, a British specialist in filovirus diseases. But there are no secrets in Pakistan, where al-Qaeda loyalists outnumber the good guys. Dr. Ali quickly gets wind of the strike force, and he’s especially enraged to know that a woman is included in the force. A woman with a gun! The province of Baluchistan starts to run with blood as the SSI specialists and Dr. Ali’s troops shoot, stab, whip and otherwise torture each other in their frequent encounters. And while the blood is spilling, the sinister veterinarian purchases two boys from an impoverished family and sets them on a fatal course.
Action-filled revenge fantasy for desk-bound Terminators.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2007
ISBN: 0-765-31371-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2006
Light on surprises and character development, this tepid thriller will have most astute readers correctly guessing the...
An accident forces a man to return to his small Iowa hometown and confront violent secrets from his past, ones he’s kept hidden from his wife.
Sarah Quinlan thought she knew everything about her husband, Jack: an accident killed his parents when he was 15 so he left Penny Gate, Iowa, and has only been back once. But when the couple gets news that Jack’s beloved aunt Julia, who raised Jack and his younger sister, Amy, after their parents’ deaths, is gravely injured in a fall, the prodigal son returns. Gudenkauf (Little Mercies, 2014, etc.) makes it clear from the start that nothing should be taken at face value, not Jack’s story about his parents (his mother was actually bludgeoned to death, and his father, now MIA, was the prime suspect) or the seemingly idyllic small-town atmosphere. This, however, does little to heighten the suspense as advice columnist Sarah takes on the role of amateur detective in sniffing out Quinlan family secrets past and present. Through her we meet Jack’s terse cousin Dean and his too-perfect wife, Celia, along with Julia’s husband, Hal, who became like a father to Jack in the wake of his own family tragedy, and Amy, who couldn’t be more stereotypically “troubled.” Jack and Amy’s tragic past, which becomes the central mystery of the plot once Sarah figures out that her husband has been lying to her for two decades, is tied to Julia’s not-so-accidental fall, but only for the purposes of a neatly sewn-up plot.
Light on surprises and character development, this tepid thriller will have most astute readers correctly guessing the ending halfway through.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7783-1865-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
Fast-paced, imaginative fun. May Kurt and crew survive, as there’s a good series to continue.
The latest maritime thriller in the NUMA series starring Kurt Austin (The Rising Sea, 2018, etc.)
In 1968, the French submarine Minerve sinks without a trace in the Mediterranean. In the present day, an oil rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing and badly injuring many workers. Enter Kurt Austin, head of Special Projects at the National Underwater Marine Agency. Kurt leads a team that assists in marine emergencies, so they respond to the Mayday call and quickly find a stream of underwater flame—escaping gas is burning in the water, down “as far as the eye could see.” It’s a fire that needs no oxygen, a phenomenon Kurt’s team has never seen. NUMA calls the disaster clear-cut sabotage, and Kurt’s assignment is to find the guilty party. Said party is Tessa Franco, CEO of Novum Industria, who is busily sabotaging oil production around the world. She wants to promote her new fuel cell to replace “this mad reliance on fossil fuels” and become even more stinking rich than she already is. She has “infected half the world’s major oil fields” by pumping oil-eating bacteria into them, rendering them useless. “She is the oil crisis,” Kurt tells the president. Kurt's and Tessa’s teams race to locate the Minerve, which may have critical genetic research Israel commissioned half a century ago. There are great action scenes underwater and on the surface, where Tessa’s seaplane, the Monarch, is almost as big as a 747. Rotten to the core, Tessa wants her lackeys to “get rid of Austin once and for all.” Her odds look mighty good considering the firepower she brings to bear.
Fast-paced, imaginative fun. May Kurt and crew survive, as there’s a good series to continue.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1902-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
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