A promising and confident political thriller that takes big swings and lands some punches.
In Snowling’s debut novel, an American campaign manager gets a crash course in Central American politics.
After serving in the military, Rex Nash spent eight years working on campaigns, trying to change government for the better. (When someone asks him how he could do such work even though he hates politicians, he quips, “But I love to help get them out of office.”) When the grind became too much, he threw in the towel and took a quiet job with an insurance lobbying firm. However, when he gets the opportunity to reconnect with old flame Jessica Roark, Rex moves to North Carolina to be closer to her and goes back to campaign work. He’s right in the middle of successfully executing a long-shot campaign for a local congressional candidate when Jessica abruptly ends their rekindled relationship via text message. The heartbroken Rex distracts himself with a job managing the campaign of Raul Vasquez, a reformist candidate running for president of Panama. Unbeknownst to Rex, the campaign has already drawn the attention of a number of unsavory figures, including ruthless hit men and shady billionaires. The sitting president stacks the courts to hold onto power, and then a bomb goes off in Vasquez’s apartment—with Rex present. Rex and Vasquez survive the blast, but Rex becomes a prime suspect in the crime, as many in Panama already think he’s CIA—and the real CIA seems content to let him take the fall. A manhunt ensues, and Rex’s problems follow him back to America. Will he be able to stay alive, clear his name, get Vasquez elected, and win back the woman of his dreams?
Over the course of this political thriller, Snowling offers readers prose that’s muscular and engaging, particularly during the action sequences, as in the aftermath of the aforementioned bombing: “He stumbled out of the library and into what was left of the living room. The windows had been blown out, and the hardwood was charred. Bodyguards rushed past him and into the library to collect Vasquez, hurt but alive. Rex tried to see what was wrong with the candidate, but he had to grip his own head to stop the ringing.” Some readers will find that much of the novel, which hopscotches between the third-person perspectives of Rex and a number of Panamanian politicians and criminals, is reminiscent of the Netflix thriller series Narcos, which even gets name-checked by Rex himself. The plot takes a while to get going, and the mechanisms that Snowling uses to get Rex to various places sometimes feel clumsy or needlessly complicated. (The plotline involving Jessica, for example, will particularly strain readers’ credulity.) Even so, the overall story is consistently entertaining and intricate, and Snowling’s real-life background as a political consultant in Panama adds some color to the proceedings. For the most part, Snowling shows good writerly instincts, and his future offerings—perhaps continuing Rex’s adventures—will likely be worth a look.
A promising and confident political thriller that takes big swings and lands some punches.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 979-8985581362
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Great Story Network
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2022
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
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
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