A superb protagonist headlines this brisk, riveting espionage tale.
In this thriller sequel, a Secret Service agent chases a homicidal terrorist plotting global cyberattacks against nuclear power plants.
Izzy Stone’s trip to the beautiful city of Paris is “a matter of national security.” The Secret Service agent’s mysterious friend Victor believes terrorist attacks in the United States and France are imminent, and he’ll only give the details to Izzy. But Victor, who lives in Paris’ catacombs, offers mere possibilities: North Korea may be planning the attacks, which likely involve Lalo, a wanted terrorist whose real identity is unknown. The man with all the actual specifics is already dead; in fact, Izzy was riding the metro when someone gunned him down—a murder that no one witnessed. Apparently, a killer targets anyone with information on the impending strike, which includes someone close to Izzy. Convinced Lalo is the culprit, Izzy races to track him down, a pursuit that takes her back to America. He’s not only dangerous, but an elusive master of disguises as well. Meanwhile, a hacker infiltrates nuclear power plants in Georgia. As this is surely a precursor to full-scale cyberattacks, thousands are at risk of catastrophic radiation. Aragon’s gripping story moves at a steady clip, keeping the capable hero on her toes. It’s moreover delightfully complex, at least for a time; tied to the diabolical plot is a mysterious Russian woman covertly working for rival agencies. Action scenes pop: “Izzy withdrew her Sig Sauer and chambered a round, moving fast and low, eyes sweeping left and right.” While Izzy is certainly shrewd, readers may question why she hoards so much intelligence (for example, a known terrorist possibly on American soil). Nevertheless, she’s endlessly intriguing, like her romantic entanglements with both the U.S. president (whom she’s saved more than once) and an MI6 agent. The indelible denouement leaves a lasting impression.
A superb protagonist headlines this brisk, riveting espionage tale.Pub Date: June 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-99-816121-1
Page Count: 405
Publisher: Oakhurst Print
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
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