This debut thriller finds an entire family on the run from those who would sell bleeding-edge technology to the highest bidder.
In Park City, Georgia, Ron and Valerie Granger work for INESCO, a family-owned research company that develops technology for the U.S. government. Ron also happens to be an inactive CIA operative, while Valerie belonged to the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. They believe they’ve set their spy careers aside to raise their teen daughter, Leecy, but a home invasion may mean otherwise. After disabling one intruder and killing the other, the Grangers meet with FBI agent John Porter. He informs them that one of the intruders is a former INESCO employee, and perhaps they wanted to kidnap Leecy and leverage her for obtaining vital Department of Defense proposals. The Grangers disagree with Porter’s theory, maintaining that INESCO projects proceed under a shroud of coded secrecy. Later, when Leecy overhears sensitive information, the Grangers must run from the FBI and into the safekeeping of Ron’s former handler, Tammy Wakefield. With her help, they realize that INESCO has a greedy mole and that Ron’s legendary reputation as a violent, take-no-prisoners operative is their best hope for protecting everyone. In his aptly titled debut, author Davis does an excellent job laying the groundwork for upcoming volumes in the series. Ron and Valerie feel like true partners and parents, and Leecy is a believable teen (“my life is on that phone!”). Clever scenes also have Ron playing with his legend as a one-man Native American kill squad who only used a knife and a tomahawk. Valerie’s past as a Mossad assassin is more explicitly referenced; readers learn that she helped get Boris Yeltsin elected. As the tightly written plot advances, however, the Grangers’ familial bonds are so pervasive that it’s hard to feel the real danger. And though the details of CIA operations and modern technology are impressive, the narrative loses some bite when everyone stops to explain things to Leecy. Nevertheless, Davis sets a solid foundation for more adventures.
Sharply written and starring characters readers will be happy to meet again.
Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-0990314417
Page Count: 251
Publisher: Simon & Winter, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins will find this comfortingly familiar despite (or maybe because of?) the shocks and...
In Pinborough’s (Behind Her Eyes, 2018, etc.) twisty, decade-spanning, multivoiced thriller, everyone has secrets: teenager Ava; her mom, Lisa; and Lisa’s best friend, Marilyn.
On the surface, all three women fulfill the roles expected of them, and they support and love one another, but they don’t truly know each other. Ava, a competitive swimmer, is finishing up her exams and sneaking around with her first boyfriend while overly protective mom Lisa is about to clinch a big contract at work—and maybe even go on a date with a handsome millionaire client. Marilyn has been dealing with headaches at home, but she’s still game for a shopping trip to outfit Lisa for that big date. Soon, however, they will discover that someone else in their lives has a secret much darker than any they carry. This person is a murderer who is stalking a childhood friend who, they believe, betrayed their deepest trust. There are a lot of plot twists and reveals within the novel, some of which are surprising, some of which are expected. Pinborough weaves several different time periods and several different narrative voices to create layers of character and conflict, but the characters are types often found in psychological thrillers, and while their problems are often relatable, at least at first, they aren’t particularly engaging. It’s clear which decisions, and which silences, are going to get them into trouble, and yet, as people do, they carry on anyway. The one element that sets Pinborough’s novel apart from the slew of similar thrillers is the emphasis on female empowerment and the power of female relationships. These women need no one to save them, no knights in shining armor or handsome cops. As Marilyn succinctly puts it, “Fuck. That. Shit.”
Fans of Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins will find this comfortingly familiar despite (or maybe because of?) the shocks and turns along the way.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-285679-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
Like James Lee Burke’s Louisiana, Atkins’ violent Mississippi idylls seem more and more clearly shaped as installments in an...
As if Mississippi’s Tibbehah County didn’t have enough present-day malfeasance to keep Sheriff Quinn Colson hopping, a cold case brings the customary pot of criminals and misfits to yet another boil.
Newly married to Maggie Powers, Quinn would like nothing better than to take a break from his hometown’s constant diet of organized and disorganized crime and begin adoption proceedings for Maggie’s 8-year-old son, Brandon. Not happening. His attention is demanded by another Brandon, who’s suddenly captured the imagination of Thin Air podcast reporter Tashi Coleman and her producer, Jessica Torres. They’ve made the trip down from New York at the behest of Shaina Taylor, whose brother vanished in the wilderness 21 years ago before turning up shot to death a week later. Brandon Taylor, the cold-case publicity hounds announce, has waited long enough for justice, and they aim to camp out in Tibbehah County, asking awkward questions and bedding the locals, until they’ve gotten to the truth. Does this mean that franchise villains like Fannie Hathcock, the county’s premiere supplier of sweet young female companionship, and the syndicate she’s in bed with will wither from neglect? Not a bit, because they’re all tied in to Brandon Taylor’s long-ago shooting, U.S. Marshal Lillie Virgil’s recent arrest of fugitive Wes Taggart, and the race-baiting gubernatorial campaign of state Sen. Jimmy Vardaman. When Taggart, who hints that he knows where the bodies are buried, is shot to death in his cell by a pair of hired killers who manage to infiltrate the jail, his murder raises what ought to be the pivotal question of “why his sorry ole ass was so important to the Syndicate boys.” But the furious torrent of crimes past and present and revelations about same keep any one question or plotline from rising above the fray.
Like James Lee Burke’s Louisiana, Atkins’ violent Mississippi idylls seem more and more clearly shaped as installments in an ongoing serial drama, and this one, ending with both a bang and a whimper, seems mainly intended to set up the next.Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-53946-9
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
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