An engaging hostage tale with indelible characters.
In this thriller, a retired diplomat and former CIA agent hunts the kidnappers who’ve abducted his girlfriend for ransom.
Brooks Davidson, once a “top diplomat” in the Middle East, has become a successful investor there. It’s 2001, and he proposes an economic project in Cairo that many believe will triumph. But one man views the enterprise as a menace. Minister of Trade and Industry Omar Sayed, convinced the Egyptian president has bypassed his own commercial projects, vows to stifle Western capitalist influence in his country. But this may simply be a matter of revenge, as his ploy entails coercing Brooks into withdrawing from all his Middle Eastern business activities. Sayed, harboring ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, enlists men to kidnap Brooks’ wife in California, at which point the minister can demand a $2 million ransom. But Sayed doesn’t know that kidnap victim Sarah Pierce has only been dating Brooks for a few months and the two have no immediate plans to wed. As soon as Brooks sees the ransom note, he contacts old friends at the CIA and other government agencies. He moreover tries identifying the kidnappers; they’re obviously Middle Eastern, but he aims to pinpoint the specific country. Sarah’s abductors make it hard to track her, as they keep moving their hostage to different locations. In the meantime, Brooks holds off paying the kidnappers and continually demands proof of life. But if they think he’s stalling, they may cut their losses, which won’t likely include letting Sarah live.
Foran creates a relatively simple kidnapping plot. Sayed’s motive, for example, is quickly apparent, and his scheme wisely doesn’t involve too many players. But his actions are a bit muddled; along with killing Sarah, he threatens to expose Brooks’ “corrupt and treasonous activities.” As this charge is merely speculation—a deal Brooks made with the Egyptian president that Sayed guesses is unlawful—it holds little weight and pales next to Sarah’s potential murder. In the same vein, the titular flub changes nothing, since the fact that the two aren’t married diminishes neither the danger Sarah faces nor Brooks’ determination to get her home safely. The author devotes plenty of pages to the likable couple’s developing romance, from their meet-cute to their deepening feelings. Nevertheless, the story is at its best with Sarah as a hostage. Though the narrative moves at a measured pace, Sarah’s scenes are genuinely suspenseful, especially as time passes and Brooks and his colleagues seem no closer to finding her. She’s also exceptionally clever. For example, while blindfolded, she tries to decipher where she is by engaging her olfactory sense, counting her steps, and striking up conversations with her captors. She also ensures that the male kidnappers keep their hands off her by claiming the penicillin pills she’s taking for pneumonia are actually tuberculosis meds. As the abduction takes place in the summer of 2001, references to an impending, real-world tragedy only months later are predictable. Fortunately, they’re subtle nods, all part of Foran’s smart infusion of history in his fictional narrative.
An engaging hostage tale with indelible characters.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-61468-650-7
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.
A series of mounting complications leads to yet another fight to the death between the discarded intelligence agents of Slough House and the morally bankrupt head of MI5.
As Jackson Lamb’s motley crew on Aldersgate Street struggles to cope with the deaths of River Cartwright’s grandfather and mentor, intelligence veteran David Cartwright, and their dim, beloved colleague Min Harper, new troubles are brewing. Diana Taverner, who runs the British Intelligence Service from Regent’s Park, is being blackmailed by former MP Peter Judd to do his bidding. Nothing untoward about that, of course, but this time, Judd’s demands, backed by a compromising tape recording, are more pressing than usual. So Diana reconvenes the Brains Trust—Al Hawke, Avril Potts, Daisy Wessex, and their ex-boss Charles Cornell Stamoran—whose last assignment was to serve as the contact for psychopathic IRA informant Dougie Malone while turning a blind eye to his multiple rapes and murders, which were really none of the Crown’s business. Taverner’s new assignment for the Brains Trust is the assassination of Judd. Since all these developments are filtered through the riotously cynical lens of Herron’s imagination, nothing goes as planned, and when the smoke clears, the fatalities don’t include Judd. Now that Judd knows he has as much reason to fear Taverner as she does to fear him, Lamb offers to broker a peace meeting between them which Slough House computer geek Roddy Ho will keep secret by knocking out 37 security cameras around Taverner’s dwelling. What could possibly go wrong?
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781641297264
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.
Evildoers plan attacks from America to India, and Jack Ryan Jr. is a prime target.
In Washington state, a man and his family are murdered, and President Jack Ryan learns it is another Poseidon Spear incident. Three retired members of that counterterrorism group have been killed now, and the U.S. government suspects a mole in its midst. Meanwhile, the Umayyad Revolutionary Council believes it has a holy and wholly anti-American mission. Against this backdrop, Jack Ryan Jr., and his fiancée, Lisanne Robertson, visit Delhi, India, to attend the wedding of Srini Rai, the brilliant surgeon who attached Lisanne’s prosthetic left arm. Lisanne had lost her arm in Tom Clancy Shadow of the Dragon (2020). Jack and Lisanne are both operators working for the Campus, a covert group that executes secret presidential directives. A wedding is a happy occasion, and the engaged American couple intend the trip as a vacation. Jack and Lisanne will attend a sangeet, an elaborate pre-wedding party. But it isn’t long before they survive a suicide bomb attack. As with all Clancy novels, there’s plenty of action on a global scale. In simultaneous strikes, terrorists plan to contaminate America’s Western water supply with radioactive waste from Washington’s Hanford nuclear power plant, blow up a spectacular new bridge in Kashmir, and kill the evil Ryan—or Junior, at least. It will be At-Takwir, the end of days. There is an appealing mix of Indian culture, high-speed action, and the rich lode of details that characterizes the whole series. And in the background lingers the question on several characters’ minds: Have Jack and Lisanne set their own wedding date?
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780593718032
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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