This adventure is more a fanciful story related by a mischievous uncle than an airport thriller—and all the more...
Sixty years after the Russo-Japanese War, a Russian field marshal’s grandson tries to unravel the mystery of a long-lost treasure in this globe-trotting debut novel.
It is 1965 and the Cold War is in full swing. Josh Ross, a World War II veteran–turned-diplomat, arrives in Istanbul to dissuade the Turkish government from pursuing hostilities toward Greece. There, he receives a mysterious letter, written in Russian and meant for his dead father. The missive leads him to André Zommer, an academic who fought in the Russo-Japanese War under Josh’s grandfather. Zommer tells Josh about his grandfather, a favorite of the czar and entrusted by the czarina with “something of great value, which she thought he could safeguard better than anyone”—namely a priceless coronation necklace given by Peter the Great to his second wife. This treasure could change the fortunes of hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews looking to immigrate to Israel, so with Sarah Burstein, a Mossad “secretary,” in tow, Josh sets out to find the necklace. But the Soviets are aware of Josh’s presence in Istanbul, and ruthless KGB head Ivan Dzerzhinsky has dispatched operatives to monitor the diplomat’s increasingly suspicious movements as well as deal with anyone who gets in their way. What promises to be a breakneck international thriller in the Dan Brown vein is marred by incompetent antagonists, meager characterization, oddly placed chapter breaks (a prologue is sprinkled over four opening chapters), and a third-person, omniscient point of view that undermines dramatic tension. As a result, the action feels occasionally aimless and the dialogue is largely expositional. This could make for an aggravating read, but the engaging central mystery is rooted in a wealth of research, and Ross relates his story in the kind of breezy, eminently readable prose that frequently makes up for the novel’s shortcomings (“It was always amazing how inhabitants of an area under assault were like flocks of birds before an oncoming storm. Somehow they knew that the winds would howl and the skies would open and bring forth torrents of rain and lightning. They sought shelter far from the storm well before it came”). Autobiographical elements also help to give the narrative the intriguing texture of a tall tale, briskly told by an international man of mystery.
This adventure is more a fanciful story related by a mischievous uncle than an airport thriller—and all the more entertaining for it.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 237
Publisher: ATBOSH Media Ltd.
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2018
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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