Entertaining escapism with old school military heroics.
A Delta Force team leader gets unexpected help on an off-the-books mission from a feral dog.
Wilson’s ambitious debut novel blends two popular genres that would seem to be at odds: the last mission adventure and the man and his dog story. Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris might kick themselves that Jackson Wade hadn’t been created for them in their 1980s action movie heyday. A “living legend” as a college wrestler who later hardened his skills in Bangkok mixed martial arts cage matches, Wade forged a new patriotic path by enlisting in the Army following the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan. As a Delta Force golden boy, he became “the king of getting results” while developing a badass reputation (when a psychiatrist asks how he sleeps after killing a man, Wade responds, “On my right side”). Is he a rule bender? “Sometimes…if it means accomplishing our mission,” he proclaims. Rule-breaking is what it will take when he and his Team Echo colleagues are recruited for a mission to take out a Taliban cell along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. By the time he is told confidentially, “You won’t like this operation, but the brass wants it done,” readers will be all in, especially when he develops a seemingly psychic bond and life-changing friendship with a de Kochyano spay, which translates to “dog of the nomads.” Wilson, a retired Air Force brigadier general, deftly brings his military knowledge and experience to bear in this series opener. He has a vivid sense of place, from a Bangkok backwater warehouse where fight crowds “smoked Marlboro cigarettes, guzzled Singha beer, and popped yaa baa, a mixture of methamphetamine and caffeine,” to a Taliban village complex in Pakistan. He writes great action set pieces and has a good ear for military banter. A glossary of military acronyms would have been helpful, but that’s what Google is for.
Entertaining escapism with old school military heroics.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2020
ISBN: 979-8-6052-0414-5
Page Count: 438
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A weird, wild ride.
Celebrity scandal and a haunted lake drive the narrative in this bestselling author’s latest serving of subtly ironic suspense.
Sager’s debut, Final Girls (2017), was fun and beautifully crafted. His most recent novels—Home Before Dark (2020) and Survive the Night (2021) —have been fun and a bit rickety. His new novel fits that mold. Narrator Casey Fletcher grew up watching her mother dazzle audiences, and then she became an actor herself. While she never achieves the “America’s sweetheart” status her mother enjoyed, Casey makes a career out of bit parts in movies and on TV and meatier parts onstage. Then the death of her husband sends her into an alcoholic spiral that ends with her getting fired from a Broadway play. When paparazzi document her substance abuse, her mother exiles her to the family retreat in Vermont. Casey has a dry, droll perspective that persists until circumstances overwhelm her, and if you’re getting a Carrie Fisher vibe from Casey Fletcher, that is almost certainly not an accident. Once in Vermont, she passes the time drinking bourbon and watching the former supermodel and the tech mogul who live across the lake through a pair of binoculars. Casey befriends Katherine Royce after rescuing her when she almost drowns and soon concludes that all is not well in Katherine and Tom’s marriage. Then Katherine disappears….It would be unfair to say too much about what happens next, but creepy coincidences start piling up, and eventually, Casey has to face the possibility that maybe some of the eerie legends about Lake Greene might have some truth to them. Sager certainly delivers a lot of twists, and he ventures into what is, for him, new territory. Are there some things that don’t quite add up at the end? Maybe, but asking that question does nothing but spoil a highly entertaining read.
A weird, wild ride.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18319-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 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
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