A plot-driven thriller that misses deeper emotional nuances but hits the sweet spot of global intrigue.
A former CIA operative enjoying a well-deserved respite is drawn back into the treacherous world of espionage in Scott’s thriller.
This second installment in the Max Geller series begins in January 2020: Max has returned to Russia, risking his life to save Vanessa, the woman he loves, when Rodney, his former CIA boss, uses her as a pawn to manipulate Max into smuggling out a potential defector with critical information vital to U.S. national security. Max, a wanted man after his exploits during his previous incursion into Russia, is hunted by the Russian authorities, and whether the defector truly exists is uncertain—could he be a lure to draw Max into the clutches of his archnemesis, FSB Lieut. Col. Konstantine Zabluda? After Max takes the mission to save Vanessa, he’s thrown back into a game of cat and mouse in which his survival and the very fate of the world hang in the balance. Scott’s spy thriller is a sequel to The President’s Dossier (2020), Max’s previous adventure, but it can be read as a stand-alone story. The plot-driven novel is propelled by a web of intrigue that spans continents, with plenty of twists and turns (who, exactly, is Max’s true enemy?). The tension grows palpable as Max navigates a labyrinthine world of defectors, blackmailers, and adversaries both within Russia and the United States; the narrative provides a roller-coaster ride of action sequences and narrow evasions (“Spying is a game of using people. Nobody escapes, not even the puppet masters”). Less enthralling is the somewhat superficial romance subplot. The relationship between Max and Vanessa, while presumably central to the storyline, is not developed sufficiently for readers to understand Max’s motivations. Their connection, though pivotal in guiding Max’s decisions, lacks depth and emotional resonance. The novel’s strength lies in its excellent pacing and intricate construction of shadowy geopolitical machinations—a strength that ultimately proves to be rather topical.
A plot-driven thriller that misses deeper emotional nuances but hits the sweet spot of global intrigue.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9781608095261
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
More than any of his earlier cases, the comatose hero’s 26th adventure bears the hallmarks of a formal detective story.
Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Joe Pickett has been shot plenty of times before. But this time may be the last.
As Joe hovers between life and death in a Billings hospital, Box indicates that Dorn Peddy and James Dale O’Bryan are the two men who ambushed him, shot him, and left him for dead. But he doesn’t reveal who hired them or why. That’s left up to Joe’s three daughters: bird-abatement firm chief executive Sheridan, Bozeman private eye April, and University of Wyoming undergrad Lucy. Since the man who reported the incident to the Twelve Sleep County Sheriff’s Department has disappeared, the most that newly appointed Sheriff Steve Sondergard can do is to warn Sheridan and her sisters away from the case. But the fact that both the shooters and the witness seem to have come from one of exactly three places presents an obvious appeal to the younger Picketts, who plan to each visit one place and question the owners simultaneously before they can warn each other that anyone’s coming. The only problem is that all the possible suspects—billionaire Michael Thompson and his wife, Brandy, of the Double Diamond Ranch; ranchers John and Shelby Bucholz, of the Bucholz Cattle Company; and secretive sisters Lisa and Lainie McElwee, of McElwee Land and Cattle Ranch—act equally guilty. As Box unspools a series of flashbacks showing what Joe was up to in the weeks before the ambush, one question assumes paramount importance: Can Joe’s daughters identify which of them is behind the plot to murder their father before the hired gunmen visit the hospital and try again?
More than any of his earlier cases, the comatose hero’s 26th adventure bears the hallmarks of a formal detective story.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780593851098
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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