An enjoyable political thriller despite its flaws.
In this thriller, an FBI agent and a former New York Police Department detective investigate a conspiracy to tamper with a presidential election.
In 2024, the United States is riven by partisan dispute, cleaved into two acrimonious and irreconcilable halves, a mutual contempt expressed in the presidential election pitting Democratic candidate Katie Crandall against Republican candidate Bob Lutz. The political left believes a Republican victory would replace democracy with fascism, while the political right interprets a Democratic victory as the death of American values. David Flynn had to take a job as a deputy sheriff in Hamilton County, Ohio, after being kicked off the NYPD for accidentally shooting a Black youth. He uncovers evidence of intentional voter fraud affecting the vote counts in the battleground states of Ohio and Georgia—interference that might have led to a tipping of the electoral scales to Crandall. Flynn teams up with beautiful FBI agent Marla Devereaux—with her “exotic almond-shaped eyes” and “cheekbones any aspiring fashion model would kill for”—to quietly investigate a crime that could send the nation spiraling into civil war. Thompson conjures a political drama as electrifying as it is plausible, one that illuminates the fragility of the electoral system as well as the nation’s fractured psyche. The deeper the pair digs, though, the more it seems like the fraud they’ve discovered is part of a deeper conspiracy, one that transcends internecine polarization. The relationship between Flynn and Devereaux is microcosmic of the country’s angry division at first—she expects him to be a “Trump-loving troglodyte”—as he’s a lifelong Republican, and she’s a liberal Black woman. Their eventual (and predictable) romantic entanglement seems to point toward the possibility of greater political harmony on the national stage: a hopeful note in Thompson’s otherwise bleak vision.
The plot is frantically paced—it has the feel of a cinematic thriller, packed with action and intrigue. Furthermore, the author keenly documents the ways in which a generally prosperous nation can still suffer badly under the weight of gathering division. Thompson’s writing style is the weakest aspect of the book—it is antiseptically bland. He occasionally indulges in a sort of condescending didacticism, one that purveys well-worn, obvious lessons. Here is Flynn’s turn at sermonizing: “A nation’s policies should be based on reality, however unpleasant or inconvenient, or those policies are doomed to fail. When the truth no longer matters, demagogues, opportunists, and ideologues are free to fill the void with whatever lies and false narratives serve their purpose—and that’s never good for a nation.” These preachy platitudes threaten to undermine the book as a whole, although luckily this sort of collapse is narrowly avoided. However, this is not the kind of political meditation one finds in a book like Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America (2004)—a brilliant work of historical hypothesis. Rather, Thompson offers a dramatic page-turner, an eventful (if uneven) thriller based on a thoroughly intelligent premise. If read in this light, this is an entertaining novel, and even a touch more than that. An enjoyable political thriller despite its flaws.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 9780990686255
Page Count: 252
Publisher: NorLightsPress
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A standout in the series.
The sixth adventure of Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon explores the mysteries of human consciousness, the demonic projects of the CIA, and the city of Prague.
“Ladies and gentlemen...we are about to experience a sea change in our understanding of how the brain works, the nature of consciousness, and in fact…the very nature of reality itself.” But first—Langdon’s in love! Brown’s devoted readers first met brilliant noetic scientist Katherine Solomon in The Lost Symbol (2009); she’s back as a serious girlfriend, engaging the committed bachelor in a way not seen before. The book opens with the pair in a luxurious suite at the Four Seasons in Prague. It’s the night after Katherine has delivered the lecture quoted above, setting the theme for the novel, which features a plethora of real-life cases and anomalies that seem to support the notion that human consciousness is not localized inside the human skull. Brown’s talent for assembling research is also evident in this novel’s alter ego as a guidebook to Prague, whose history and attractions are described in great and glowing detail. Whether you appreciate or skim past the innumerable info dumps on these and other topics (Jewish folklore fans—the Golem is in the house!), it goes without saying that concision is not a goal in the Dan Brown editing process. Speaking of editing, the nearly 700-page book is dedicated to Brown’s editor, who seems to appear as a character—to put it in the italicized form used for Brownian insight, Jason Kaufman must be Jonas Faukman! A major subplot involves the theft of Katherine’s manuscript from the secure servers of Penguin Random House; the delightful Faukman continues to spout witty wisecracks even when blindfolded and hogtied. There’s no shortage of action, derring-do, explosions, high-tech torture machines, attempted and successful murders, and opportunities for split-second, last-minute escapes; good thing Langdon, this aging symbology wonk, never misses swimming his morning laps. Readers who are not already dyed-in-the-wool Langdonites may find themselves echoing the prof’s own conclusion regarding the credibility of all this paranormal hoo-ha: At some point, skepticism itself becomes irrational.
A standout in the series.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780385546898
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
This mystery’s promising premise bogs down in an overloaded cast.
When one woman takes on another’s identity to uncover a crime, they both become suspects in a murder.
Aubrey Price and Camille Bayliss come from different worlds, only crossing paths because of the discovery that Camille’s husband, powerful lawyer Ben Bayliss, is hiding something terrible that affects them both. As the novel opens, Aubrey is driving Camille’s Range Rover, then teetering into a bar on Camille’s high heels, with Camille’s dress and credit cards and a wig that mimics Camille’s hair, pretending to be her because Ben tracks his wife’s every move and expenditure, and Camille wants to create a smokescreen while she sneaks into his office in search of evidence of that unnamed secret. But the scheme goes awry, and the women become each other’s alibis after Camille finds Ben murdered in their home. The first part of the book builds suspense and misdirection well, with Aubrey and Ben’s straight-arrow partner, Hank Landry, serving as first-person observers in some chapters while others track Camille. She’s a wealthy and privileged woman but not a happy one, stuck under the thumbs of her husband and her tyrannical father, Randall Everett, who pretty much runs their small Louisiana town. Aubrey was orphaned as a teen when her parents died in a car crash and has proudly fended for herself ever since, coming to depend on her four roommates, who have become friends. But as the cast of characters grows, it seems as if almost everyone in town has a motive for killing Ben, and the piling up of suspects and movements among different timelines can sometimes be confusing. And it all comes to a frustrating end when, after a whole school of red herrings, the solution to Ben’s murder arrives out of far left field.
This mystery’s promising premise bogs down in an overloaded cast.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9780593834459
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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