Patterson’s partnership with Ledwidge is already up to the fifth installment in the perilous adventures of NYPD Detective Michael Bennett (Tick Tock, 2011, etc.).
After long hours planning and praying and waiting for the perfect chance, the NYPD–DEA task force charged with arresting Manuel “the Sun King” Perrine, head of Mexico’s Tepito drug cartel, is ready to pounce. Despite some last-minute glitches that lead to the first of many casualties, they grab Perrine and lock him up. But Bennett, who’s played a leading role in the task force, soon realizes that his troubles have only begun, because Perrine’s many loyal, well-paid followers, lots of them only a phone call away from his Manhattan cell, really, really don’t want to see him go down. Once Bennett turns down a $250 million bribe to turn Perrine loose, the gauntlet has been thrown, and he spends the rest of this shoot-’em-up dodging bullets, many of which find their way to less lucky targets. Perrine’s eye-candy bodyguard, Marietta, is especially insinuating and emphatic in her threats, but whenever Bennett picks up the phone, it’s the same deal: We’re going to kill you, we’re going to kill your family, we’re going to kill two police officers a day until you release the Sun King. Nor are these idle threats. Perrine arranges for two of Bennett’s 10 adopted children to get shot; his minions disrupt the legal proceedings with a bang; and those first two cops, at least, are toast.
Will Bennett’s loyal nanny-and-more, Mary Catherine, abandon her charges in their darkest hour? Will Perrine escape from custody in a made-for-the-movies sequence? Will Bennett finally close his case for good? Or will Patterson and Ledwidge ring down the curtain leaving the conflict unresolved and paving the way for a sequel? Stay tuned.Pub Date: July 9, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-316-09746-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2012
Categories: THRILLER
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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. 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER
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Rumors of lost Egyptian treasure spark high adventure in this 17th in the NUMA series featuring oceanographer Kurt Austin and his crew (Sea of Greed, 2018, etc.).
Over 3,000 years ago, grave robbers sail away with loot from a pharaoh’s tomb. In 1927, Jake Melbourne and his plane disappear in his attempt at a trans-Atlantic flight. In the present day, arms merchants known as the Bloodstone Group have taken to stealing antiquities. They are looking for a “treasure both vast and glorious” that hieroglyphics say was shipped down the Nile and out of Egypt, perhaps even west across the Atlantic. (Holy scurvy! That must’ve been a lot of hard rowing!) The criminals are known to MI5 as “very dangerous people" and "merchants selling death.” Perfectly willing to kill everyone in their way, they are aided by mechanical crows and Fydor and Xandra, nasty sibling assassins jointly called the Toymaker. Such are the foes faced by Austin and his team from the National Underwater and Marine Agency. Of course, Austin has no interest in profit; he will gladly leave the ancient riches wherever they are. Action arrives early and often, and the failed pre-Lindbergh flight fits in neatly. Cussler and Brown concoct a nifty plot with disparate, sometimes over-the-top twists that will make even hardcore adventure fans say “Wow!” Expect claustrophobic gunfights, aerial combat, a life-threatening flood, messages from the dead, coffins of gold—and a vintage classic car, because why not? “We’re going to steal the greatest deposit of Egyptian treasure the world has ever known,” brags the evil mastermind. But he’ll have to climb over the series hero’s dead body first, which—no plot spoiler here—ain’t gonna happen.
This is fast-paced, nonstop fun. Cussler fans will gobble it up.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-08308-6
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | CRIME & LEGAL THRILLER
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