A deeply emotional read. And when the action is over, the coda could water an atheist’s eye.
A priest in Vatican City leads a perilous rescue effort surrounded by Rome’s Nazi occupiers.
In 1943 and 1944, Obersturmbannführer Paul Hauptmann terrorizes a starving Rome. But he is forbidden to enter Vatican City, at one-fifth of a square mile, the tiniest country in the world. If Jews or escaped Allied POWs can manage to get there, they may have a chance to be smuggled to safety. The novel is inspired by a real historical figure named Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, an Irish envoy to the Vatican. O’Flaherty and a small group go to great lengths to secretly aid as many people as they can. Discovery means death, so the group uses elaborate ruses—they form a choir as a cover, and O’Flaherty quietly passes along individual instructions during choir practice. They speak in code—“Books in the Library” means escapees being protected. It’s a risky game they’re about. Hitler only tolerates the Vatican’s existence and could wipe it out in the blink of an eye, so O’Flaherty’s superiors are deeply uneasy about the monsignor’s activities. Meanwhile, Hauptmann knows there is an Escape Line, and he is eager to prove it. And given that his “favoured interrogation tool is the blowtorch,” his odds look better than O’Flaherty’s. But the “nuisance of a priest” is not nicknamed Hughdini for nothing, and he is moral to his core. If the story were told in typical thriller style, emphasizing action over language, it would still be good, but O’Connor’s phrasings are a special joy. One unnamed cardinal is “a long drink of cross-eyed, buck-toothed misery if ever there was, he’d bore the snots off a wet horse.” On Christmas Eve, three bitterly cold German soldiers are invited indoors for some holiday cheer. They are “fine examples of the super-race”: One of them is “a haddock-faced, lumpenshouldered, Wurst-fingered corner boy, that ugly the tide wouldn’t take him out.” And the Vatican Embassy has “rats you could saddle.”
A deeply emotional read. And when the action is over, the coda could water an atheist’s eye.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-60945-835-5
Page Count: 440
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Maybe not the most thrilling thriller, but the role of AI in coping with grief gives this novel pathos and interest.
A widowed and disgraced plastic surgeon is drawn into a Russian oligarch’s evil schemes.
Witherspoon’s adult fiction debut, co-authored with thrillermeister Coben, opens as heart surgery performed by Dr. Marc Adams in a North African refugee camp is interrupted by the explosive invasion of armed militants. It's the last we will see of Marc in this dimension. The next chapter jumps ahead one year to a ceremony at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore where his widow, Maggie McCabe, is supposed to be presenting an award in honor of her mother. Miserable and anxious about appearing in public after having lost her medical license, she consults with her late husband on her phone—not via supernatural means, but using a "griefbot," an amazingly lifelike and functional AI app created by her genius sister, Sharon. Once the griefbot coaxes her to brave the sneering masses, she learns she’s been replaced on the podium anyway. But she runs into a former professor, a celebrity plastic surgeon, who requests a meeting with her at his office in New York and won’t take no for an answer. Next thing she knows, there’s $10 million in her bank account and she’s on a private plane heading to a palace outside Moscow where she’s been engaged to perform off-the-record surgery on billionaire Oleg Ragoravich (new face) and his girlfriend, Nadia (new boobs). And…we’re off. A whirl of surgeries, chases, and escapes ensues as Maggie gradually comes to understand who these people are and what they have in mind for her, and how it connects to Marc and their missing friend and business partner, Trace Packer. She is aided by her delightful father-in-law, Porkchop, owner of a biker bar in New York City and a very handy guy to have on your team if you've run afoul of an international criminal organization. From the palace in Rublevka the action moves to Dubai and then Bordeaux, climaxing in a high-stakes illegal heart transplant. But wait—is Marc really dead? What happened to Trace? Who is Nadia really? Though these smoldering questions don’t quite catch fire, it's a good first try for Witherspoon.
Maybe not the most thrilling thriller, but the role of AI in coping with grief gives this novel pathos and interest.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781538774700
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Fast-moving and disturbingly plausible.
Robots may be the future of warfare in this final father-son DeMille collaboration.
In Camp Hayden, Army Maj. Roger Ames is found dead, his skull crushed. Chief Warrant Officers Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor, special agents of the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division, are sent to the Mojave Desert, “a.k.a. in the middle of nowhere,” to investigate. In this fictional military installation, Army Rangers conduct field training exercises with lethal autonomous weapons. These “dangerous new toys,” nicknamed “tin men,” may become the future of warfare if they can be programmed to distinguish between friend and foe. Anyway, the Rangers’ job is to train the tin men, not the other way around. They are AI-driven robotic prototypes called D-17s, but even prototypes can kill. Did a bot kill the major? And was there criminal liability or intent, or was it a tragic accident? Brodie and Taylor discover that not everyone loves these beasts, and they must find out if humans are programming them for mischief or even trying to set up the program for failure. Meanwhile, the bots have nicknames. Bot number 20 is Bucky, seen on a video as a “seven-foot-tall titanium machine with hands covered in blood and brain matter” that has “a face but no eyes, with hands but no skin, with a body but no soul.” As scary as these beasties are, Brodie and Taylor must also look at the humans at Camp Hayden, because they learn that the “machines don’t have motives….They have inputs and outputs,” which naturally come from human programmers. They have neither brains nor courage nor honor; they do have brute force, speed, and agility. Obviously, plenty goes haywire in this enjoyable yarn. It feels a bit too believable for comfort, and that’s to the DeMilles’ credit as storytellers. Nelson DeMille had begun this project with his son Alex, who had to finish it alone after his father’s death.
Fast-moving and disturbingly plausible.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781501101878
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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