A (fictitious) master plan for 16th-century megalomaniacs sets the game afoot in this reasonably interesting, though overlong, thriller by first-time author Rabb. The how-to-do-it book is called On Supremacy, and it has legs, long ones. It turns out that what pushed hot buttons in 1531 is still catnip to would-be world-dominators today. Back then, bits and pieces of the book were shown to Pope Clement VII by an ambitious Swiss monk named Eisenreich, whose brainchild it was and who was hoping for patronage and employment. Clement was impressed. In fact, unnerved. For the sake of maintaining the status quo, he ordered the treatise burned, but since Eisenreich had by then hidden it well, the Pope decided to burn him instead. Now, as the millennium is about to end, On Supremacy seems to have surfaced, and a sinister cabal finds it an ideal blueprint for effecting chaos, knowing that chaos will lead to disorientation, which will lead to terror, which will result finally in despair, ever the fertile breeding ground for New Orders of every description. Thus, the stage is set for a basic global thriller. Among the familiar ingredients: (1) highly placed moles, (2) clandestine, licensed-to-kill agents, (3) brilliant but batty archvillains, (4) brilliant but nerdy computer whizzes, and the obligatory (6) hyper- realism (“Washington, February 26, 12:45”, etc.). Give Rabb credit for one departure, though, as he rings some lively changes on the customary hero-heroine relationship, allowing agent Sarah Trent and Professor Xander Jaspers to embody a refreshing role-reversal. Sarah’s the one licensed to kill, while Xander looks to her for protection. Not that he’s wimpish. It’s just that the anarchic, kill-or-be-killed world he all of a sudden finds himself in is completely alien to him. But not to her. She, as she phlegmatically informs him, is good at chaos. In a book, say, 75 pages thinner, Rabb’s intriguing odd couple might have been enough to carry the day.
Pub Date: June 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-609-60253-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1998
A thriller that fails when it turns to the supernatural.
A Harvard freshman investigates the suicide of her schizophrenic brother and finds herself chasing a conspiracy and hearing the voices of the dead.
Cady Archer is determined to attend Harvard even though her beloved older brother, Eric, killed himself there. Considered a genius in math and science, Eric suffered from schizophrenia but had stopped taking his prescriptions, and his yearlong mental health spiral into paranoia and delusion still haunts Cady and her parents. Cady is attending Harvard against her mother’s wishes, but she’s driven by a need to understand what happened the night Eric died. Her quest leads her to a handsome, seductive friend of Eric’s, the professor with whom he was working on a secret project, and something more troubling: voices in her head. Is Cady suffering from schizophrenia, too? Or are the voices she’s hearing truly ghosts, real people who once lived on the Harvard campus and faced their own dilemmas there? The question of Cady’s mental health is interesting, and Serritella—best known for the essay collections she writes with her mother, thriller writer Lisa Scottoline (I See Life Through Rosé-Colored Glasses, 2018, etc.)—brings the famous campus to life in a vivid way. She also effectively explores the aftermath of loss and grief on a family. But Serritella is on shaky ground once the story veers into the supernatural. Cady’s conversations with the ghosts are tiresome and ultimately don’t add much to the narrative. In fact, they detract from what could have been a solid psychological thriller. Her conversations with Bilhah, a slave who is terrified her son will be sold away from her, feel uncomfortably like pandering. The book is repetitive and far too long, and though the endgame strives to shock readers with twists, it's ultimately unsatisfying.
A thriller that fails when it turns to the supernatural.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-51036-9
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Lots of frenzied flipping back and forth for readers who like to figure out the puzzle.
Witnessing a suicide proves almost fatal for the witness herself.
Shay Miller would not have been on that subway platform had she not taken the 22 seconds required to tie up her ponytail. Because she did, she is the sole witness to a suicide that changes her life. But is she stalking the friends of the dead girl, or are they stalking her? It seems to be both, as Hendricks and Pekkanen (An Anonymous Girl, 2019) unfold another one of their intricately plotted, female-focused thrillers. Rage about rape and sexual abuse underlies the plot as Google searches, dating apps, and hacked phones move it forward, making this a thriller of the moment. Here, the evil men are on the sidelines—the women are pitted against each other in a complicated game of cat and mouse. Shay, who is lonely, insecure, and broke, is easily drawn in by the cool and confident Moore sisters, who ply her with beauty makeovers, a “sea-blue leather purse,” “a sugar cookie scented Nest candle, with notes of Tahitian vanilla and bourbon infused caramel,” and, most devastatingly, the illusion of friendship. But socially awkward, highly observant Shay, who makes her way through life by recording statistics and factoids about human nature in a “Data Book,” can only be fooled so long. “Between 73 and 79 percent of homicides during a 15-year period were committed by offenders known to the victim,” she notes. Good thing to know. The authors dole out clues in a series of interlocking flashbacks; finally we get the detail that makes the pieces come together, with just a few little issues to argue about in your book club.
Lots of frenzied flipping back and forth for readers who like to figure out the puzzle.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-20203-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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