A smart, illuminating tale about important global concerns.
In this debut political novel, a former attorney and government worker tackles a new position that focuses on repairing American diplomatic relations.
Following a career at the Treasury and State Departments as well as at a Washington, D.C., law firm, Staunton “Salt” Pepper retires. He moves back to his family farm in Virginia and settles into small-town life. But Stuart Bacon, the likely choice for secretary of state for the new 2021 administration, calls Salt back to Washington. He wants Salt to be a “troubleshooter and a diplomatic relations turnaround specialist.” Many apparently view America as “xenophobic, racist…and untrustworthy,” among other things. Salt will fly to various countries and consult with respective representatives in an effort to foster multilateralism—in contrast to the United States’ typical unilateral actions. His traveling companion is CIA agent Louise Roseaux, who’s essentially his bodyguard. There indeed may be danger involved since in places like London and Berlin, the two sometimes believe someone is tailing them. Meanwhile, Salt and diplomats discuss such issues as the “Iran nuclear deal.” He hopes to convince these countries that America is willing to mend relations even if, as he speculates, it takes years. Maiwurm’s novel features pithy, informed writing. The author smoothly addresses numerous topical subjects, from Covid-19 and the bleak economy to the Black Lives Matter movement. These are generally part of the characters’ political discourse, even among the locals in Salt’s hometown. Covid-19’s incorporation into the story is especially well done. Salt recently lost his wife, Meredith, a nurse, to the virus and witnesses its lingering effects (for example, empty middle seats on flights). Despite the appealing protagonist’s middle-of-the-road political beliefs, he maps out a clear plan for improving diplomatic relations. Though Salt’s continued mourning for Meredith is convincing, his deepening relationship with Louise has little impact on the characters or the narrative.
A smart, illuminating tale about important global concerns. (acknowledgements)Pub Date: July 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-66320-468-4
Page Count: 188
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.
A woman’s life takes a stunning turn and a wall comes tumbling down in this tense Cold War spy drama.
In Berlin in 1989, the wall is about to crumble, and Anne Simpson’s husband, Stefan Koehler, goes missing. She is a translator working with refugees from the communist bloc, and he is a piano tuner who travels around Europe with orchestras. Or so he claims. German intelligence service the BND and America’s CIA bring her in for questioning, wrongly thinking she’s protecting him. Soon she begins to learn more about Stefan, whom she had met in the Netherlands a few years ago. She realizes he’s a “gregarious musician with easy charm who collected friends like a beachcomber collects shells, keeping a few, discarding most.” Police find his wallet in a canal and his prized zither in nearby bushes but not his body. Has he been murdered? What’s going on? And why does the BND care? If Stefan is alive, he’s in deep trouble, because he’s believed to be working for the Stasi. She’s told “the dead have a way of showing up. It is only the living who hide.” And she’s quite believable when she wonders, “Can you grieve for someone who betrayed you?” Smart and observant, she notes that the reaction by one of her interrogators is “as false as his toupee. Obvious, uncalled for, and easily put on.” Lurking behind the scenes is the Matchmaker, who specializes in finding women—“American. Divorced. Unhappy,” and possibly having access to Western secrets—who will fall for one of his Romeos. Anne is the perfect fit. “The matchmaker turned love into tradecraft,” a CIA agent tells her. But espionage is an amoral business where duty trumps decency, and “deploring the morality of spies is like deploring violence in boxers.” It’s a sentiment John le Carré would have endorsed, but Anne may have the final word.
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64313-865-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.
Coulter’s treasured FBI agents take on two cases marked by danger and personal involvement.
Dillon Savitch and his wife, Lacey Sherlock, have special abilities that have served them well in law enforcement (Paradox, 2018, etc.). But that doesn't prevent Sherlock’s car from hitting a running man after having been struck by a speeding SUV that runs a red light. The runner, though clearly injured, continues on his way and disappears. Not so the SUV driver, a security engineer for the Bexholt Group, which has ties to government agencies. Sherlock’s own concussion causes memory loss so severe that she doesn’t recognize Savitch or remember their son, Sean. The whole incident seems more suspicious when a blood test from the splatter of the man Sherlock hit reveals that he’s Justice Cummings, an analyst for the CIA. The agency’s refusal to cooperate makes Savitch certain that Bexholt is involved in a deep-laid plot. Meanwhile, Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith is visiting friends who run a cafe in the touristy Virginia town of Gaffers Ridge. Hammersmith, who has psychic abilities, is taken aback when he hears in his mind a woman’s cry for help. Reporter Carson DeSilva, who came to the area to interview a Nobel Prize winner, also has psychic abilities, and she overhears the thoughts of Rafer Bodine, a young man who has apparently kidnapped and possibly murdered three teenage girls. Unluckily, she blurts out her thoughts, and she’s snatched and tied up in a cellar by Bodine. Bodine may be a killer, but he’s also the nephew of the sheriff and the son of the local bigwig. So the sheriff arrests Hammersmith and refuses to accept his FBI credentials. Bodine's mother has psychic powers strong enough to kill, but she meets her match in Hammersmith, DeSilva, Savitch, and Sherlock.
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9365-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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