A grand postwar adventure that’s dramatic, flashy, and pleasantly offbeat.
A skilled assassin tries to rescue British troops being held by a sadistic baron after World War I in Harries’ latest installment of his Tales of the Sica thriller series.
In 1920, Leon Harries is one of the best professional killers the British secret service has; he’s descended from a clan of assassins whose history goes back 2,000 years, and he knows his talents are incomparable. Capt. Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, chief of the foreign branch of the British Secret Intelligence Bureau, has an important mission for him. The Great War has ended, Europe is in disarray, and the dastardly Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg has kidnapped and taken control of a group of British soldiers. As the captain tells Leon, “We are talking about a man with the ability to rise from the depths of depravity and land on a level of deviancy and debauchery that hasn’t fouled the earth since Attila the Hun.” Leon would rather call it a day and pass his prized sica, or dagger, on to another family member, but the British need their boys back, and the baron is planning on invading Mongolia. Enter Countess Catherine von Merenberg, granddaughter of Tsar Alexander II, who’s a skilled pilot. She flies Leon over Europe and Asia in 400-mile hops, dodging warlords and imminent doom, until they reach their target: the horrible baron. Harries’ historical adventure gets off to a slow start, with background information and cameos from real-life figures such as Winston Churchill filling too much space when a more streamlined approach to the complicated narrative would have worked much better. That said, the work delivers enough historical pomp and bombast to make the story engaging and, at times, hair-raising even as it remains fully grounded in the realities of a postwar world. Throughout, the author displays a notable knack for spinning a yarn, and his story of a just assassin in a world of power-hungry warriors is inventive and tirelessly imaginative.
A grand postwar adventure that’s dramatic, flashy, and pleasantly offbeat.Pub Date: April 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781950628186
Page Count: 281
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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