An often grim but engrossing tale of self-preservation and brutal vengeance.
A capable, lethal woman vows revenge against the men who abducted and assaulted her in this thriller sequel.
LeAnn Haddad’s flight from San Francisco to Singapore isn’t a vacation. She’s wanted for murder and aims to hide in her brother’s safe house. But a sex trafficker at the Singapore airport is already on the hunt. He grabs LeAnn and restrains her in a dingy room, where men drug and rape her. She manages to escape and has no qualms about killing her captors in the process. But she wants retribution against the one in charge, whom she calls the Clean Man (“The Clean Man was going to pay”). Meanwhile, law enforcement Superintendent Kwan Kim Lai has been investigating numerous reports of missing tourists in the area. When suspects start turning up dead, he guesses that a former kidnap victim is taking out sex traffickers. He hopes to arrest these men before the killer gets a hold of them, although it won’t be easy—not with the powerful Clean Man determined to protect himself and his deplorable ring. LeAnn, who had a smaller role in Shaw’s series opener, Lieutenant Trufant (2022), proves to be a vivid, complex antihero. She’s a coldblooded and efficient killer but vulnerable as well. LeAnn battles her addiction to the drugs the kidnappers gave her and reluctantly empathizes with other abductees. The author tempers some of the violence—for instance, by implying much of the sex traffickers’ torture of LeAnn. The bloodier scenes are reserved for the pitiless kidnappers, but they still aren’t excessively graphic. The author’s taut narrative deftly showcases suspenseful moments, such as Kwan’s continuing investigation, which is not far behind LeAnn’s deadly spree, and signs of the Clean Man’s far-reaching connections (for example, loyal henchmen overseas). Nevertheless, the absorbing story’s highlights involve LeAnn’s impressive surveillance, as she smartly tracks down sex traffickers to get closer to the titular villain, who quite frankly deserves whatever she has planned.
An often grim but engrossing tale of self-preservation and brutal vengeance.Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781665305969
Page Count: 288
Publisher: BookLogix
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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