Though the book’s war-on-terror filigree edges close to the universe of Jason Bourne, the (holy) spirit is willing in this...
Roman Catholic priest and novelist Peter Quince finds himself the surprised employer of an icy, international CIA hit man, whose secret yearning for absolution risks both their lives.
Prolific author Roccasalvo (Triple Sec: Three Distilled Love Stories, 2013, etc.) evokes Graham Greene, rather appropriately, in a novella-length tale of political intrigue, guilt, sin, and redemption. Quince has written a popular mystery-thriller novel, The Thirteenth Floor. Quite unexpectedly, he inherits an entire Mediterranean island and estate from a prosperous Italian artisan he knew only briefly. Quince uses this tourists’ idyll to work on much-anticipated international stage versions of The Thirteenth Floor, but in the meantime makes the troubling acquaintance of another estate fixture, the island’s live-in “security” specialist, Kai Landrie. A Eurasian yoga master with ninja stealth, marathon-runner stamina, and Buddhist self-control, Landrie spends weekends away as an elite assassin for the CIA, killing enemies of the United States with nothing but his bare hands. He makes a specialty of Islamic terrorists, having seen his parents slain (and been himself raped) by Muslims in Thailand. Despite his steely predator exterior, Landrie is severely divided against himself, and he seeks and listens to Quince’s religious counsel of forgiveness and compassion as a counterweight to his drive for revenge. But CIA Director Titus Rede learns of his prize killer’s dawning conversion and finds the meddlesome priest a threat to national security. Roccasalvo uses only a bit more than 100 pages and lean prose reminiscent of classic Ian Fleming (minus the sexual emphasis and brand-name luxury products lovingly described) to unfold a tragic narrative of the sacred and the damned seemingly trying to bridge the gulf between each other. The author includes a clerical nod toward the culture of Italy that sired religious, scientific, and artistic breakthroughs alongside the murderous rules of the Medicis and Borgias. Readers may find the material straddling the aisles between spiritual vestments and cloak-and-dagger, although at no point does the author succumb to thrill-ride antics and pulpy purple prose. He does, however, add excerpts from The Thirteenth Floor as an occasional story-within-the-story; it’s actually interesting stuff (blending architecture, whodunit, and the paranormal), but borderline distracting.
Though the book’s war-on-terror filigree edges close to the universe of Jason Bourne, the (holy) spirit is willing in this bumpy, parablelike tale.Pub Date: March 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5144-7095-4
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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