Cleveland engenders deep paranoia for the susceptibility of U.S. intelligence—under the guise of entertainment.
“How well do any of us know our neighbors?” This question anchors Cleveland’s latest novel as a CIA analyst fights against the clock to keep Iranian intelligence from infiltrating the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System.
Beth Bradford’s life is in transition: Her youngest son has just started college, and she and her husband are moving out of the house where all three of their kids grew up, away from the McLean, Virginia, neighborhood where their best friends still live. Their marriage is also fading; Beth’s only solace is that she will have more time to devote to preventing Iranian intelligence from infiltrating the network using an asset only known as “The Neighbor.” Despite her almost 20 years on the case, however, she is suddenly reassigned to a teaching gig, losing her high-level security clearance and her professional raison d’être. The last bit of intelligence she (surreptitiously) accesses is a short message: “The Neighbor has found a new cul-de-sac.” Determined to figure out the identity of The Neighbor before national security is compromised, she begins to surveill her old neighborhood, noticing for the first time how most of her friends, in addition to the woman who bought her house, have their own secrets and could potentially be guilty. But no one will believe her; her family, friends, and co-workers chalk up her suspicions to midlife crisis paranoia. Will she uncover the identity of The Neighbor before it’s too late? Despite a rather predictable pattern—no one seems to understand that Beth’s concern is rooted in more than her chaotic life changes—there are a number of satisfying twists in the second half of the book. To answer the rhetorical question: No, it’s clear that we never really know our neighbors—or our own families—but must rely only on ourselves. A stark takeaway, yes, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
Cleveland engenders deep paranoia for the susceptibility of U.S. intelligence—under the guise of entertainment.Pub Date: July 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35802-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
As an adjunct member says, “You’re not a family, you’re a force.” Exactly, though not in the way you’d expect.
The ne’er-do-well son of a successful Irish American family gets dragged into criminal complications that suggest the rest of the Devlins aren’t exactly the upstanding citizens they appear.
The first 35 years in the life of Thomas “TJ” Devlin have been one disappointment after another to his parents, lawyers who founded a prosperous insurance and reinsurance firm, and his more successful siblings, John and Gabby. A longtime alcoholic who’s been unemployable ever since he did time for an incident involving his ex-girlfriend Carrie’s then 2-year-old daughter, TJ is nominally an investigator for Devlin & Devlin, but everyone knows the post is a sinecure. Things change dramatically when golden-boy John tells TJ that he just killed Neil Lemaire, an accountant for D&D client Runstan Electronics. Their speedy return to the murder scene reveals no corpse, so the brothers breathe easier—until Lemaire turns up shot to death in his car. John’s way of avoiding anything that might jeopardize his status as heir apparent to D&D is to throw TJ under the bus, blaming him for everything John himself has done and adding that you can’t trust anything his brother has said since he’s fallen off the wagon. TJ, who’s maintained his sobriety a day at a time for nearly two years, feels outraged, but neither the police investigating the murder nor his nearest and dearest care about his feelings. Forget the forgettable mystery, whose solution will leave you shrugging instead of gasping, and focus on the circular firing squad of the Devlins, and you’ll have a much better time than TJ.
As an adjunct member says, “You’re not a family, you’re a force.” Exactly, though not in the way you’d expect.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780525539704
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.
A bear is hunting prey in Wyoming’s Bighorns. And not just any bear.
It’s bad enough that Clay Hutmacher, who manages the Double Diamond Ranch, has lost his son, Clay Jr., to a vicious attack by a grizzly bear. What’s much worse is that Clay Jr.—who’d been about to pop the question to game warden Joe Pickett’s daughter, Sheridan—is only the first of the victims over an exceptionally broad geographical area. Marshal Marvin Bertignolli is clawed and bitten to death over in Hanna. Sgt. Ryan Winner is found bleeding out north of Rawlins. Former Twelve Sleep County prosecutor Dulcie Schalk, one of two survivors of an ambush, doesn’t survive her final encounter. The four experts chosen to kill the grizzly rope Joe into their expedition, but since their quarry keeps turning up far from the last sighting, the most meaningful confrontation the Predator Attack Team has is with a pair of Mama Bears, animal rights activists who demand due process for Tisiphone, as they’ve dubbed the presumed killer. Box, who’s far too canny to leave Tisiphone alone on center stage, follows Joe’s old antagonist Dallas Cates as the ex–rodeo star is released from prison and embarks on his revenge tour, which takes him to Lee Ogburn-Russell, an inventor whose life Dallas saved, and Axel Soledad, a correspondent who shares so many enemies with Dallas that he suggests they go after them together. Franchise fans will appreciate new details about Joe’s complicated family, the obligatory high-country landscapes, and yet another corrupt law enforcer.
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593331347
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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