A global fraud tale remains laudable in its frankness; it’s not what the baddies are hiding, but the frightening lengths...
London investigators look into possible corporate fraud involving a shipping company that may retain secrets by resorting to murder in this debut thriller.
While hijacking one of Han Chan Lines’ ships, Somali pirates kill Chief Engineer Stephen Desmond, a rather calculated act akin to an execution. This is suspect because Desmond was a proposed whistle-blower who’d compiled evidence for journalist Sarah Grelsham: in a case of potential fraud, HCL’s allegedly been slowing vessels intentionally to allow pirates to board. Sarah hasn’t received said evidence yet, but her ensuing disappearance could mean that someone’s covering his or her tracks. Lloyd’s and managing agent Verre Slater enlist corporate adviser Laughton MacAllister—specifically, Michael Leithead’s team. Members include former Fraud Squad detective Manon Wyn Roberts and Drew Rydstrom, once in the Royal Australian Navy but later pulled from a Nigerian jail by Michael. The team searches for Desmond’s reputed evidence, as well as another, unknown individual in whom the engineer confided, while a couple of relevant bodies turn up. The killer(s) could be anyone from HCL, with probable links to drugs and Mafia-esque Chinese Triads, or Gyrescom, a maritime satellite communications company HCL uses. The investigators, however, may likewise be in danger when one of them, trying to reach a contact for information, becomes a target himself. Considering its global plot, Adamson’s story is surprisingly simple. Readers, for example, know who the villains are and whom they’ve tortured and killed well before Drew and others discover anyone’s dead. Fortunately, this gives rise to pure suspense, with Drew and Manon often unaware they’re in the presence of a murderer. Characters, in contrast, are gloriously complex, especially the somewhat murky good guys. Investigator Diego da Souza’s a hacker who enjoys snapping upskirt photos, while team newbie Manon’s facing trouble for old boss and lover Greg Hart’s illicit deeds—and an affair with a pregnant celebrity’s husband has turned Manon into the nation’s antagonist. Still, it’s clearly a team of heroes, as the band ultimately pursues the mysterious Puppet Master truly in control. Violence is generally unflinching but doesn’t quite prepare readers for a startling, unforgettable ending.
A global fraud tale remains laudable in its frankness; it’s not what the baddies are hiding, but the frightening lengths they’ll go to stay in power.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Constance
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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