A thriller with a down-to-earth protagonist whose misadventures are invigorating.
A Scottish accountant becomes a target for gangsters and Scotland Yard in Tosoff’s (Escape from Konigsberg, 2016, etc.) thriller-series launch.
After nearly a decade in a loveless marriage, Ian MacLeod returns to his hometown of Glasgow, Scotland, from Brighton, England. Things look up when he meets fetching criminal profiler Kyla Fraser and runs into former schoolmate Jordie Dunsmuir, who offers him a job. However, the gig at Jordie’s accounting firm, RIA, may be too good to be true. It consists of “night audits” in which Ian secretly looks into other accounting firms to uncover suspicious activity. His first job is digging into London company SXZ Enterprises, where he unearths financial fraud and, surprisingly, a much more unsavory crime. Then someone at SXZ, who had a pre-existing tie to Ian, turns up murdered, pointing police toward the accountant as a suspect. Ian links the murder to an earlier death involving the Glasgow mob and later pilfers a substantial amount of money from another mob-affiliated company. With authorities and gangsters on his tail, Ian needs help from anywhere he can find it, including from Kyla at Scotland Yard. But their romantic involvement could put them both in danger. Tosoff’s novel is a worthy introduction to its protagonist, whose descent into events beyond his control is plausible as well as riveting. His coupling with Kyla happens too quickly, but it does launch an unorthodox relationship. Kyla, for example, learns about Ian’s history via interviews with his ex-wife, Judith Reid, and former roommate Danny McGinnis, the latter of whom may be the reason why Ian high-tailed it out of Glasgow years ago. Scenes with the villains provide more depth; inevitable mistrust among them ultimately results in more death. The story maintains its swift momentum as Ian goes on the run, but there’s room for humor, too; for example, to find out how to unlock a desk during a night audit, Ian does something smart and a bit droll—he uses Google.
A thriller with a down-to-earth protagonist whose misadventures are invigorating.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 403
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2017
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
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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