Every Reacher novel delivers a jolt to the nervous system, but this lacks some of the stylistic flair that truly...
Despite plenty of page-turning propulsion, this is one of the lesser novels in the series.
Now that Jack Reacher has become a film franchise, it seems that he—or maybe his author (Never Go Back, 2013, etc.)—is spreading himself a little thin. The 19th novel featuring the former MP–turned–Zen do-gooder—dubbed “Sherlock Homeless” by one of his old Army officers—once again starts with him drifting with nothing more than the clothes on his back—no cellphone or bank account, no plans, no destination, no history that’s apparent to anyone he encounters. Yet, through a stretch of plotting coincidence, he finds himself pulled into his military past and then thrust into an international conspiracy involving a sniper—or are there more than one?—and an assassination plot. He also inevitably finds himself paired with a possible romantic interest, the improbably named Casey Nice (“Nice by name, nice by nature”), about whom he muses, “Was there a finer place to be, than where those jeans were?” The plot quickly (in a Reacher novel, everything happens quickly) complicates itself like a chess match, as it turns out that only four snipers in the world have the capability of making the shot, each of a different nationality, each with his own country’s authorities pursuing him. One of them is a man Reacher sent to prison 16 years earlier and who has, conveniently enough, just been released. After a close call in Paris, our hero and Ms. Nice travel to London, where a gathering of global leaders will provide a convenient target (whomever the target turns out to be). At one point, when his partner reminds Reacher that there's no death penalty in Britain, he replies, “There is now,” with the sort of catchphrase bravado one might expect from Dirty Harry. Since Reacher has never been much of a team player or an organization man, the plot really shifts into high gear when he cuts himself loose and does what he does best.
Every Reacher novel delivers a jolt to the nervous system, but this lacks some of the stylistic flair that truly distinguishes Child.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8041-7874-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
A satisfying puzzler, one to shelve alongside le Carré, Forsyth, and other masters of foreign intrigue.
“It is a dangerous time to be alive.” Indeed, as this fast-paced thriller by seasoned mysterian Pavone (The Travelers, 2016, etc.) proves.
A siren wails in Paris, a once-rare sound often heard in these times of terror. It’s gone off because a jihadi has strapped a bomb to himself and is standing in front of the Louvre, “in the epicenter of Western civilization,” waiting for his moment. But is he a jihadi? Who’s put him up to this dastardly deed, and why? That’s for Kate Moore, deep-cover CIA agent, “sidewalk-swimming in a sea of expat moms,” to suss out. Kate lives in a shadow world, so hidden away that even her hedge-fund-master husband doesn’t have a clue about what she does: “Dexter has been forced to accept that she’s entitled to her secrets,” Pavone writes, adding, “He’s had plenty of his own.” Indeed, and in the shadowy parallel world of speculative finance, he’s teamed up with a fast-living entrepreneur who wants nothing more than to become superrich and run off with his “assistant-concubine.” Hunter Forsyth is about to announce a huge deal, but suddenly he’s disappeared, whisked away by shadowy people who, by the thin strings of suspense, have something to do with that bomb across town. So does a vengeful young mom, strapped to a useless husband and bent on payback for a long-ago slight. All this is red meat to Kate, who’s tired of the domestic life, no matter how much a sham, and is happier than a clam when “running her network of journalists, bloggers, influencers, as well as drug dealers, thieves, prostitutes, and cops, plus diplomats and soldiers, maitre d’s and concierges and bartenders and shopkeepers.” With all those players, mercenaries, and assorted bad guys thrown into the mix, you just know that the storyline is going to be knotty, and it resolves in a messy spatter of violence that’s trademark Pavone and decidedly not for the squeamish.
A satisfying puzzler, one to shelve alongside le Carré, Forsyth, and other masters of foreign intrigue.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6150-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
The plot is absurd, of course, but the book is a definitive pleasure. Prepare to be absorbed—and in more ways than one.
Another Brown (Inferno, 2013, etc.) blockbuster, blending arcana, religion, and skulduggery—sound familiar?—with the latest headlines.
You just have to know that when the first character you meet in a Brown novel is a debonair tech mogul and the second a bony-fingered old bishop, you’ll end up with a clash of ideologies and worldviews. So it is. Edmond Kirsch, once a student of longtime Brown hero Robert Langdon, the Harvard symbologist–turned–action hero, has assembled a massive crowd, virtual and real, in Bilbao to announce he’s discovered something that’s destined to kill off religion and replace it with science. It would be ungallant to reveal just what the discovery is, but suffice it to say that the religious leaders of the world are in a tizzy about it, whereupon one shadowy Knights of Malta type takes it upon himself to put a bloody end to Kirsch’s nascent heresy. Ah, but what if Kirsch had concocted an AI agent so powerful that his own death was just an inconvenience? What if it was time for not just schism, but singularity? Digging into the mystery, Langdon finds a couple of new pals, one of them that computer avatar, and a whole pack of new enemies, who, not content just to keep Kirsch’s discovery under wraps, also frown on the thought that a great many people in the modern world, including some extremely prominent Spaniards, find fascism and Falangism passé and think the reigning liberal pope is a pretty good guy. Yes, Franco is still dead, as are Christopher Hitchens, Julian Jaynes, Jacques Derrida, William Blake, and other cultural figures Brown enlists along the way—and that’s just the beginning of the body count. The old ham-fisted Brown is here in full glory (“In that instant, Langdon realized that perhaps there was a macabre silver lining to Edmond’s horrific murder”; “The vivacious, strong-minded beauty had turned Julián’s world upside down”)—but, for all his defects as a stylist, it can’t be denied that he knows how to spin a yarn, and most satisfyingly.
The plot is absurd, of course, but the book is a definitive pleasure. Prepare to be absorbed—and in more ways than one.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-51423-1
Page Count: 461
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
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