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WINDING BACK THE CLOCK

Name: WINDING BACK THE CLOCK
Author: Ian Laurence
ISBN: 978-1477229835

by Ian Laurence ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 14, 2012

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A countess and a CIA agent discover a nefarious plot to dissolve the European Union in Laurence’s debut, a spy-novel/mystery hybrid.

For most of her 50 years, Katie Talbot, aka Countess Katherine von Arnitz, has searched for her family’s missing treasures. Two brothers, Stefan and Oskar Shimonsky, took the valuable art from her ancestral estate in Germany—including a Titian now scheduled to be auctioned at Sotheby’s for an estimated $50 million. The masterpiece’s owner, Marshall Maxwell, invites Katie to a “Friends and Foes”–themed party and offers her a deal: If she drops the matter of provenance, he’ll give her a cut of the sale. But the next day, on a visit to the auction house, she notices the painting is a forgery. She and American secret agent Grant Henderson investigate and soon find a connection between the sales of Maxwell’s artwork and the surprising dominance of a far-right political party, the NDVP, which is looking to take seats in the Reichstag—and nudge the world into war. Meanwhile, a group of bungling assassins, led by ex-East German Olympian, Detlef Weber, are looking to kill Stefan. They make multiple attempts: After a car bomb fails, they kidnap the paraplegic Stefan (now posing as London resident Steven Jackson), drop him at the beach and leave him to drown in the tide. When this plan goes awry, they knife a horse’s hindquarters, causing it to bolt and “cannon” into the disabled man’s path. Readers may find these scenes a bit broadly comical for an otherwise politically astute book. The novel also depicts Grant as something of an American James Bond, particularly in his attitudes toward women. For example, when a German agent, an “early 30-something” blonde, leads Grant to her office, he notes “her taut bottom and superb legs, thinking that this experience alone made the trip worthwhile.” Readers, however, may find this attitude more crass than sexy. Although the author clearly knows his way around Berlin, Weimar, New York, London and even Naples, Fla., he unfortunately seems unable to locate believable female characters to propel his otherwise well-mapped story. An uneven international thriller.

Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2012

ISBN: 978-1477229835

Page Count: 332

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2012

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

THRILLER

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YOU'D LOOK BETTER AS A GHOST

by Joanna Wallace ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 16, 2024

Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.

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Dexter meets Killing Eve in Wallace’s dark comic thriller debut.

While accepting condolences following her father’s funeral, 30-something narrator Claire receives an email saying that one of her paintings is a finalist for a prize. But her joy is short-circuited the next morning when she learns in a second apologetic note that the initial email had been sent to the wrong Claire. The sender, Lucas Kane, is “terribly, terribly sorry” for his mistake. Claire, torn between her anger and suicidal thoughts, has doubts about his sincerity and stalks him to a London pub, where his fate is sealed: “I stare at Lucas Kane in real life, and within moments I know. He doesn’t look sorry.” She dispatches and buries Lucas in her back garden, but this crime does not go unnoticed. Proud of her meticulous standards as a serial killer, Claire wonders if her grief for her father is making her reckless as she seeks to identify the blackmailer among the members of her weekly bereavement support group. The female serial killer as antihero is a growing subgenre (see Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, 2018), and Wallace’s sociopathic protagonist is a mordantly amusing addition; the tool she uses to interact with ordinary people while hiding her homicidal nature is especially sardonic: “Whenever I’m unsure of how I’m expected to respond, I use a cliché. Even if I’m not sure what it means, even if I use it incorrectly, no one ever seems to mind.” The well-written storyline tackles some tough subjects—dementia, elder abuse, and parental cruelty—but the convoluted plot starts to drag at the halfway point. Given the lack of empathy in Claire’s narration, most of the characters come across as not very likable, and the reader tires of her sneering contempt.

Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.

Pub Date: April 16, 2024

ISBN: 9780143136170

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Penguin

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024

Categories:

GENERAL & DOMESTIC THRILLER | THRILLER | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE

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DAUGHTER OF MINE

by Megan Miranda ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 9, 2024

Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.

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The loss of her police officer father and the discovery of an abandoned car in a local lake raise chilling questions regarding a young woman’s family history.

When Hazel Sharp returns to her hometown of Mirror Lake, North Carolina, for her father’s memorial, she and the other townspeople are confronted by a challenging double whammy: As they’re grieving the loss of beloved longtime police officer Detective Perry Holt, a disturbing sight appears in the lake, whose waterline is receding because of an ongoing drought—an old, unidentifiable car, which has likely been lurking there for years. Hazel temporarily leaves her Charlotte-based building-renovation business in the capable hands of her partners and reconnects with her brothers, Caden and Gage; her Uncle Roy; her old fling and neighbor, Nico; and her schoolfriend, Jamie, now a mother and married to Caden. Tiny, relentless suspicions rise to the metaphorical surface along with that waterlogged vehicle: There have been a slew of minor break-ins; two people go missing; and then, a second abandoned car is discovered. The novel digs deeper into Hazel’s family history—her father was a widow when he married Hazel’s mother, who later left the family, absconding with money and jewels—and Miranda, a consummate professional when it comes to exposing the small community tensions that naturally arise when people live in close proximity for generations, exposes revelation after twisty revelation: “Everything mattered disproportionately in a small town. Your success, but also your failure. Everyone knows might as well have been our town motto.”

Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.