A well-crafted, diverting thriller.
A DEA desk agent is forced into the field in Karl’s thriller.
In the mid-1980s, during President Reagan’s War on Drugs, Thomas Sebastian works as a researcher at the Drug Enforcement Administration. The role means a lot to him (his brother dies of an overdose), but he has no combat or field experience—the only thing close is a stint he served in the Peace Corps, in Thailand. It turns out that his Thai language abilities are just what the DEA needs for a drug bust in Bangkok. Thomas goes through a hellish few weeks of combat training and assumes a new identity: Robert Jordan. “Robert” travels to Bangkok and meets his new team, which includes a Thai agent and ex-detective, an American woman who’s a remarkably fierce combatant, and their overseer, who keeps spirits up. Their jobs are complicated, requiring them to avoid angering the local police as well as the city’s drug cartels as they snoop around and break into potential drug sites (Robert must act as if can’t speak Thai). Soon, Robert encounters violence he knows he’s not cut out for and meets an alluring woman at a local cafe who may or may not be an informant (“He breathed in her perfume—jasmine”). It’s difficult to negotiate everyone’s competing interests, and Robert finds himself in way over his head. The story is fairly straightforward, buoyed by political discussions and humor, and the characters are funny and easy to root for. There’s an odd lack of suspense and danger, though—the actual destructive effects of the drug trafficking aren’t seen much on the page, and they aren’t often used to further the plot, beyond justifying backstories. A tense shoot-out happens near the end of the novel, but it doesn’t land as well as it should because the stakes don’t feel high enough to justify the impact the scene seems to intend. Additionally, some of the characters (particularly those who are Thai, female, or both) are predictable and stereotypical. Still, this is a competent, enjoyable thriller with some substance, and spy novel fans will likely enjoy it—particularly those with an interest in the 1980s and Thailand.
A well-crafted, diverting thriller.Pub Date: Dec. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9798987014172
Page Count: 282
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.
Second of the Walter Nash thrillers—following Nash Falls (2025)—in which the remade hero seeks vengeance.
Due to urgent circumstances, Nash has bulked himself up to become the “muscled and tatted fighting machine” now known as Dillon Hope. His antagonist is Victoria Steers, a global drug dealer who wants him dead. Not realizing his new identity, she enlists Hope to free her mother, Masuyo, from a prison in Myanmar. As an incentive, she shoots one of her associates and threatens to frame Hope for the murder unless he complies. She also wants him to find Nash. He in turn wants to kill Victoria to avenge the death of his innocent daughter, Maggie. “If I go down,” he muses, “I’m taking others with me. Starting with Victoria Steers.” He learns that Victoria had killed all her siblings to eliminate business competition. But as heartless as Victoria is, her mother, Masuyo, is even worse. In league with the Chinese government in a perverse plan to kill as many Americans as possible through fentanyl overdose, she shows contempt for Victoria for her perceived weaknesses. Readers won’t find many happy family relationships here: mother-daughter, father-son, husband-wife—all fraught. Hope’s employer, who accompanies him to Myanmar, is a billionaire chief executive with a dodgy past (i.e., probably killed his father). And there’s a mega-billionaire with an astronomical IQ and ditch-deep morals who, putting it mildly, does not have America’s best interests at heart. As a teenager, he’d defeated two world chess champions; as an adult, he regards his dealings with the world in terms of master chess moves. Only one character seems truly decent and credible—Hiroko, Victoria’s former nanny and lifelong companion, who provides Hope with valuable insights into the Steers’ background, which is partly Chinese. Searing grudges, simple evil, and not-so-simple misunderstandings carry the cast through this complex, action-packed plot. This sequel ties out the loose ends dangling in Nash Falls, which would be helpful to read first. To get to the requisite ending, though, Baldacci takes pains to surprise the reader. It works but often feels forced.
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781538758021
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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