Grab your suitcase and board the Orient Express for a trip you won’t soon forget.
Goldis’ metamystery takes inspiration from one of Agatha Christie’s most famous stories.
In The Chateau (2023), Goldis lured readers into a locked-room murder mystery, a favorite Christie plot device, setting the tale in Provence. Her latest twisty tale of deception takes place, in part, aboard the newly restored Orient Express, and it’s as much a colorful travelogue as a tale of suspense. Rory Aronov is ensconced in the luxury train’s most expensive compartment courtesy of the reclusive bestselling author Ginevra Ex. But three days before Rory boards the train, we witness Ginevra hovering over a dead body. It’s a cinematic and bloody scene that immediately pulls the reader in. The trip, along the west coast of Italy, is a thank-you gift from Ginevra because Rory was the inspiration for the author’s most recent novel. Ginevra has written many books; each time, she buys a real person’s backstory, fictionalizes it, and molds it into a bestseller. So why, then, is Rory’s brother, Max, on the train, as well as her former fiance, Nate, and her friend Caroline? And why have copies of Ginevra’s new book been stolen before Rory and her companions can read them? Is someone toying with them? Narrating the book in alternating chapters, Goldis’ travelers are provocatively unreliable, and the sense of uncertainty they bring to the story laces it with foreboding and danger. The purple-haired Ginevra is equally unreliable, and as her backstory unfolds, we realize she may be connected to Rory and company; the only question is how. Goldis unceasingly pits her characters against each other, just as Ginevra does in her novel, and the parallels between Ginevra’s novel and Goldis’ build delicious tension and drama.
Grab your suitcase and board the Orient Express for a trip you won’t soon forget.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781668013045
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Emily Bestler/Atria
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.
Evildoers plan attacks from America to India, and Jack Ryan Jr. is a prime target.
In Washington state, a man and his family are murdered, and President Jack Ryan learns it is another Poseidon Spear incident. Three retired members of that counterterrorism group have been killed now, and the U.S. government suspects a mole in its midst. Meanwhile, the Umayyad Revolutionary Council believes it has a holy and wholly anti-American mission. Against this backdrop, Jack Ryan Jr., and his fiancée, Lisanne Robertson, visit Delhi, India, to attend the wedding of Srini Rai, the brilliant surgeon who attached Lisanne’s prosthetic left arm. Lisanne had lost her arm in Tom Clancy Shadow of the Dragon (2020). Jack and Lisanne are both operators working for the Campus, a covert group that executes secret presidential directives. A wedding is a happy occasion, and the engaged American couple intend the trip as a vacation. Jack and Lisanne will attend a sangeet, an elaborate pre-wedding party. But it isn’t long before they survive a suicide bomb attack. As with all Clancy novels, there’s plenty of action on a global scale. In simultaneous strikes, terrorists plan to contaminate America’s Western water supply with radioactive waste from Washington’s Hanford nuclear power plant, blow up a spectacular new bridge in Kashmir, and kill the evil Ryan—or Junior, at least. It will be At-Takwir, the end of days. There is an appealing mix of Indian culture, high-speed action, and the rich lode of details that characterizes the whole series. And in the background lingers the question on several characters’ minds: Have Jack and Lisanne set their own wedding date?
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780593718032
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
