Journalism and spycraft make for compelling bedfellows in Porter’s latest thriller.
Sidelined by MI5 for her violent tendencies—never mind that she was being sexually assaulted when she crowned her assailant with a champagne bottle—Agent Slim Parsons is summoned back to investigate a shadowy news site.
For months, Slim has been in hiding from her vengeance-seeking would-be rapist, billionaire money launderer Ivan Guest, whom she was secretly investigating. Her new job is to pose as a reporter at Middle Kingdom, an upstart news organization located north of London near historic Bletchley Park, that’s suspected of hacking top-security government systems for its big stories. With her brother missing, possibly killed by Guest, and her mother recovering from a home invasion attack, Slim is as loathe to play by the rules of journalism as of MI5. She defies her hard-nosed but New Agey boss Abigail Exton-White in pursuing unassigned stories, including a slave labor conspiracy with possible connections to Guest (the book has no lack of subplots for her to bounce among). Surprisingly adept at handling bad guys, she arouses suspicions among the journalists. Who is she really? The novel turns on connections between Middle Kingdom and AI-equipped descendants of Bletchley Park’s wartime codebreakers. There will be blood as Guest remakes Slim’s acquaintance and corrupt government forces seek to shut down Middle Kingdom. As the great-granddaughter of a Jewish-born Polish intelligence officer who heroically destroyed evidence that Poland had broken the Enigma machine when Germany invaded his country, Slim has a vested interest in the drama. Journalist Porter has been compared to Mick Herron, among other top spy novelists, and Slim could have leaped from one of his Slough House novels with her freewheeling rejection of authority. But Porter never loses sight of her humanity and basic vulnerability; the reader feels her personal losses while rooting for her to overcome them.
Journalism and spycraft make for compelling bedfellows in Porter’s latest thriller.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780802164438
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.
On the isle of Capri, Helen Lingate seeks revenge on the people responsible for her mother’s death 30 years earlier—her own family.
When Sarah Lingate fell to her death on Capri in 1992, she left behind a 3-year-old daughter, Helen, and a legacy as a gifted playwright; her favorite necklace of golden snakes was lost to the sea. Thirty years later, Helen, chafing at the restrictions she’s grown up under as a member of the old-money Lingate family, hatches a plan with her uncle Marcus’ assistant, Lorna Moreno, to blackmail her uncle and her father with that same necklace, which mysteriously entered her possession a few months before. The novel begins on Capri just after Lorna disappears, and then traces her steps from 36 hours earlier. Interweaving chapters from the points of view of Helen, Lorna, and Sarah—as well as, later, a few others—we learn how Sarah gradually became stifled by the constant pressure of keeping up appearances until she became inspired to write a play, Saltwater, that was a not-so-thinly veiled tell-all revealing dark Lingate family secrets. It was shortly after this that she fell to her death. The loss of her mother has come to define Helen’s life, and if she can use the necklace as leverage to escape her family, and maybe learn the truth along the way, she’ll take the risk. Lorna’s motives are both murkier and more straightforward—she’s never had money, and she’s got a chip on her shoulder about it, so splitting 10 million euros with Helen sounds like a way to discard her past and start fresh. These strong, conniving women drive the drama and the narrative, and they are captivating enough that as twist after twist begins to unfurl, the novel still feels character-driven. The end—well, the end shocks. And it’s well earned. By the time the sun sets on the gorgeous excess and rugged coast of Capri, lives will have been destroyed.
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593875551
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.
Second of the Walter Nash thrillers—following Nash Falls (2025)—in which the remade hero seeks vengeance.
Due to urgent circumstances, Nash has bulked himself up to become the “muscled and tatted fighting machine” now known as Dillon Hope. His antagonist is Victoria Steers, a global drug dealer who wants him dead. Not realizing his new identity, she enlists Hope to free her mother, Masuyo, from a prison in Myanmar. As an incentive, she shoots one of her associates and threatens to frame Hope for the murder unless he complies. She also wants him to find Nash. He in turn wants to kill Victoria to avenge the death of his innocent daughter, Maggie. “If I go down,” he muses, “I’m taking others with me. Starting with Victoria Steers.” He learns that Victoria had killed all her siblings to eliminate business competition. But as heartless as Victoria is, her mother, Masuyo, is even worse. In league with the Chinese government in a perverse plan to kill as many Americans as possible through fentanyl overdose, she shows contempt for Victoria for her perceived weaknesses. Readers won’t find many happy family relationships here: mother-daughter, father-son, husband-wife—all fraught. Hope’s employer, who accompanies him to Myanmar, is a billionaire chief executive with a dodgy past (i.e., probably killed his father). And there’s a mega-billionaire with an astronomical IQ and ditch-deep morals who, putting it mildly, does not have America’s best interests at heart. As a teenager, he’d defeated two world chess champions; as an adult, he regards his dealings with the world in terms of master chess moves. Only one character seems truly decent and credible—Hiroko, Victoria’s former nanny and lifelong companion, who provides Hope with valuable insights into the Steers’ background, which is partly Chinese. Searing grudges, simple evil, and not-so-simple misunderstandings carry the cast through this complex, action-packed plot. This sequel ties out the loose ends dangling in Nash Falls, which would be helpful to read first. To get to the requisite ending, though, Baldacci takes pains to surprise the reader. It works but often feels forced.
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781538758021
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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