A solid series entry that is, as usual, exciting, intricately plotted, and thoroughly entertaining.
A pilot endowed with self-powered, invisible flight takes on a ruthless conspiracy in this seventh installment of a thriller series.
In his previous outings, 34-year-old pilot Will Stewart has helped thwart several serious crimes by using the special ability he calls “the other thing,” which allows him to vanish and float in the air. He must employ hand-held, battery-operated props, which he keeps tinkering with, to control his direction and velocity. Called in to pick up a passenger for a charter pilot job, Will learns that his client is famed actress Lonnie Penn, who wants to be taken to an isolated South Dakota motel. An anonymous caller has demanded half a million dollars in exchange for the Mexican grandson she didn’t know she had or he’ll be deported. But at the handover, Lonnie is attacked, and there’s no child to be found. Since Will’s wife, Andrea—called Andy—is a police detective, he asks her to investigate. Meanwhile, FBI Deputy Director Mitchell Lindsay invites Will and Andy to a meeting at his island vacation home. He’s in on Will’s secret and wants to discuss how the pilot might help the bureau. But before talks can get under way, Lindsay is assassinated on his way to a separate meeting with Aaron McCauley, a high-powered lawyer whose Washington, D.C., firm represents sketchy clients. One is a group of Russian investors tied to organized crime. They’ve bought out a Mexican cartel, supposedly to shift it to legitimate activities. Another client is “a cabal of ruthless military officers” in democratic Ghana, aiming for control of its gold resources. Will, Andy, and law enforcement allies work to unravel these tangled threads in the United States and across the border, hoping to unmask a conspiracy that aims at the heart of the American judicial branch.
Fans of the series may find that the premise is getting familiar. However fascinating, the details of how Will works with the abilities and limitations of his gift remain much the same from the previous novel. This volume also doesn’t provide any new developments in understanding the source of the other thing, nor does it further explore another facet of Will’s unusual powers: curing children of leukemia. That said, Seaborne is never less than a spellbinding storyteller, keeping his complicated but clearly explicated plot moving smoothly from one nail-biting scenario to another. As the tale goes along, seemingly disparate plotlines begin to satisfyingly connect in ways that will keep readers guessing until the explosive (in more ways than one) action-movie denouement. The author’s grasp of global politics gives depth to the book’s thriller elements, which are nicely balanced by thoughtful characterizations. Even minor characters come across in three dimensions, and Will himself is an endearing narrator. He’s lovestruck by his gorgeous, intelligent, and strong-willed wife; has his heart and social conscience in the right place; and is boyishly thrilled by the other thing.
A solid series entry that is, as usual, exciting, intricately plotted, and thoroughly entertaining.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Trans World Data
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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