Dynamic characters—good and bad guys alike—beef up this action-laden tale.
An NYPD cop heading a counterterrorism unit tries to stop a sleeper cell in the U.S. from launching a strike in this debut thriller.
Capt. Jimmy Gallagher’s first case as commander of the Organized Crime Terrorist Unit is a homicide in Brooklyn. The victim “appears to be” Middle Eastern, and the unusual method of strangulation—leaving a hole in the neck—is reminiscent of al-Qaida’s M.O. for dispatching its own. Tracking the victim via security footage ultimately leads to a gunfight involving a man later identified as a known terrorist on the FBI’s watch list. Authorities not only suspect a domestic terror cell, but a potential link to Russians as well. Indeed, readers know that a group has been prepping suicide bombers strapped with vests of C-4. Jimmy, meanwhile, faces opposition from Department Chief Jim Gates, who was a rival of the captain’s former cop/private investigator father and is currently the mayor’s longtime friend. Furthermore, Gates established the OCTU six months earlier and doesn’t like that the police commissioner took the largely ineffective unit away from him. The chief’s connections could place Jimmy’s career in jeopardy, but that doesn’t stop him from putting his life on the line to ensure the terrorists don’t fulfill their explosive intentions. While Monaghan’s novel has its share of action, most of it is reserved for the final act, with the preceding pages rife with character development. The story offers absorbing exposition, particularly in its concentration on the villains: meticulous details on the methodical construction of explosives and more specifically on a man named Ibrahim, who may be second-guessing his participation in a terrorist attack. At the same time, Jimmy’s curious back story entails accidentally killing his partner in a shootout and dating department psychologist Dr. Jessica Shore. Unfortunately, neither incident has much impact on the main plot, even Jimmy and Jessica’s eventual romance. Nevertheless, there’s a steady pace throughout, including the frequent dialogue exchanges, while Jimmy turns into the kind of protagonist who can easily carry his own series.
Dynamic characters—good and bad guys alike—beef up this action-laden tale.Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-940773-23-0
Page Count: 314
Publisher: History Publishing Company, LLC
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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