Readers will finish the book, but their memories of Matthews' brilliant and fearless heroine will linger well past the final...
The third and final installment of Matthews’ (Palace of Treason, 2015, etc.) Red Sparrow series delivers a wallop on all fronts, from adrenaline-charged action to dark political intrigue to gripping emotional stakes.
Former sparrow Dominika Egorova is back. Trained to sexually entrap promising targets to spy on behalf of Russia, Dominika has risen to the rank of colonel in the counterintelligence section of the SVR, the external Russian foreign intelligence service. But back in 2005, before she evolved into a rising star in the Soviet spy agency—and a double agent, feeding information to the CIA—Dominika sexually compromised a U.S. Navy lieutenant named Audrey Rowland, never anticipating that their encounter would one day spark a lethal chain of events. Hating her role as SVR seductress, Dominika embraced her new secret identity as DIVA, one of the CIA’s premiere foreign assets. As Audrey, entrenched in her position as a Russian mole, courts a North Korean scientist willing to hand over secrets about the country’s arsenal, she passes the U.S.’s most sensitive weapons technology to Moscow. The Kremlin, eager to take advantage of Audrey’s position, hatches a risky plot to assassinate the CIA director and replace him with now-Vice Adm. Audrey Rowland. The American traitor operates under the code name MAGNIT, her identity as tightly guarded as that of her counterpart. Dominika and her lover, CIA operative Nate Nash, must put their relationship on the back burner to uncover MAGNIT’s identity or risk DIVA’s exposure. The novel is rich in spycraft that treats readers like insiders, with witty, memorable dialogue and emotional consequences that go far beyond most books in this genre—and Matthews stuffs his always hungry characters with onions, garlic, and personalities that make the last of this trilogy both satisfying and bittersweet.
Readers will finish the book, but their memories of Matthews' brilliant and fearless heroine will linger well past the final page.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-4008-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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