A superb, kinetic terrorist tale bursting with tension, paranoia, and malicious governments.
A British inspector unravels a chilling and dangerous global conspiracy in this debut thriller.
It’s the summer of 2005, and train bombings rock London. DI David Sharp of the anti-terrorist squad is on the case, which now includes an explosion on a double-decker bus. He spots discrepancies almost immediately—conflicting witness statements and amateur bomb makers using military-grade explosives. “There’s something not right about this investigation,” he says. Anonymous texts validate his speculation and point Sharp to the possibility of a worldwide conspiracy. It sounds crazy until the DI scours the internet and connects the London attacks with ones in other countries, like 9/11 and the Madrid train bombings. A mysterious figure comes forward and tells Sharp of a secret group operating for centuries that’s likely had its hands in wars, political assassinations, and myriad coverups. These powerful people have a sinister plan already cooking that will devastate the world population. Sharp vows to stop them, but as a proficient assassin in Britain takes out nosy individuals threatening the group, the DI may be next on the hit list. Macpherson’s series opener dives deep into the conspiracy, checking off the group’s trademarks—from media manipulation to hidden messages—and nodding to real-life tragedies, corporations, and political leaders. The story nevertheless moves at a steady pace; Sharp continuously stumbles on new mysteries; the cryptic baddies’ growing presence elevates suspense; and action ignites the final act. At the same time, the narrative perspective shifts in the latter half, most notably to the frighteningly calculated and lethal assassin in Britain. Ultimately, Sharp gets a strong hint regarding the group’s origin that he’s uncharacteristically slow to pick up on. It’s a curious turn that may push the series to another genre, though Macpherson keeps this entertaining book grounded in espionage terrain.
A superb, kinetic terrorist tale bursting with tension, paranoia, and malicious governments.Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64543-954-7
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Mascot Books
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A grim theme with a compelling and complex plot.
A one-eyed boy becomes a monster’s prey in this chilling tale of missing children.
Thirteen-year-old Missouri boy Joseph “Patch” Macauley was born with one eye, so he wears an eye patch and imagines himself a pirate. In 1975, he sees a masked man assaulting a girl in the woods. He attacks the man and saves her, but the predator kidnaps him instead. Patch eventually wakes in total darkness in a cellar where a different girl secretly visits him, heard but always unseen. He learns that her name is Grace and that there have been other girls down there before. Grace paints vivid word pictures of the places she’s seen and of stories by authors like Steinbeck. “Pray and stay alive,” she whispers to Patch. Eventually he escapes, but she is nowhere to be found. Searching for Grace is the underlying thread in a complicated quest that takes unexpected turns over the years and might well bring heartbreak. Meanwhile, the bodies of three girls turn up locally, and their parents grieve. Is the town doctor responsible for their deaths? A local school photographer? Both? Patch paints an image of Grace based only on what he’d heard from her in the cellar; then come more paintings and displays in an art gallery—an implausible achievement for an untrained artist. Meanwhile, Grace may be anywhere, and he must find her whether alive or dead. By now an adult, he “pinball[s]” from state to state, meeting with “a dozen families looking for a dozen lost girls.” To sustain himself he robs banks with an unloaded flintlock, and he shares his loot with organizations that are looking for missing children. He has “reasoned the truest proof of life [is] pain,” and he vows that he will die before he quits his search. This is much more than a whodunit, though it fills that bill well. It is also a richly layered tale of love, loss, and hope.
A grim theme with a compelling and complex plot.Pub Date: June 25, 2024
ISBN: 9780593798874
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
PROFILES
The book isn’t compelling or believable as a thriller, but the author has potential in other directions.
Years after a young woman's sudden death in her best friend’s kitchen, a viral video reopens questions left unanswered.
Still struggling to emerge from the wake of the tragedy she witnessed the summer before she left for college, Maya Edwards has built a life for herself with a nice guy named Dan and has vowed to stop using Klonopin to manage anxiety and insomnia. Then “Girl Dies on Camera” appears on social media. In it, a young woman pitches over dead at a table in a diner in Maya’s hometown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. As Maya sees to her horror, the woman was with Frank Bellamy, an older man/weirdo she dated that terrible senior summer. Frank was present when her best friend, Aubrey West, died the same way as the woman in the video, with no cause ever determined. Maya’s always thought Frank had something to do with it. Now she's sure and takes a trip home to see what she can find out. As a thriller, Reyes’ debut is weak. The suspense is minimal, with no sense that Frank is coming for Maya or that it actually matters whether these crimes are solved. In fact, the main threat to Maya’s well-being is the difficulty of Klonopin withdrawal and the heavy drinking she is doing to get through it, endangering her relationship with Dan, and the most interesting storyline concerns Maya’s mother and father. Brenda Edwards met Jairo Ek Basurto while on a missionary trip in Guatemala; he was murdered at the age of 22 before Brenda even knew she was pregnant. He left behind an uncompleted manuscript which Maya translated around the time she met Frank but then stuffed in a drawer; it turns out to have inspiration for her now. One of the most interesting conversations in the novel is between Maya and her mother, discussing the manuscript and the idea that our souls have a “true home” elsewhere. One would rather read a book about Brenda and Maya and skip Frank and his house in the pines altogether.
The book isn’t compelling or believable as a thriller, but the author has potential in other directions.Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-18671-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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