An engaging mix of humor, mystery, history, and geologic curiosities.
Old treasure, murder, and beautiful women send a geologist across the Arizona desert into Mexico in Terret’s mystery.
Nick Cameron, a “consulting geologist,” is having dinner in a “desiccated dump in the flat Sonoran Desert” in Arizona when in walks Theo, a dame “hotter than a Soviet drill bit at the bottom of the Kola Superdeep Borehole.” She’s got “emerald eyes,” “marathoner thighs,” “stratovolcano breasts,” a stash of valuable agates of mysterious origin, and a Smith & Wesson snub-nosed revolver. “This dame knows what she’s doing,” Nick says to the reader, who is cast in the role of confidant; it’s a tricky literary device that, for the most part, the author pulls off. Soon, Nick is embroiled in a mystery involving the agates’ provenance, crooked marketing consultants, plundered museum funds, a beautiful industrial spy, a treasure-trove of Mexican gold ore with historic connections to Pancho Villa, and a “homicidal hobo” intent on making Nick his next victim. Terret successfully weaves the disparate threads of the complicated plot together, layering the narrative with fascinating, well-informed geological references and leavening the proceedings with humor, evoking the lingo and brash attitudes of old detective pulp fiction novels throughout. Women are “dames” (and mostly set dressing), their legs are “gams,” guns are “roscoes,”, and murder victims are “whacked.” The author conveys real feeling with Nick’s origin story: At age 13, he discovered his grandfather’s stash of 1950s detective novels, and the two bonded over their mutual enjoyment of the genre, using the books’ tough-guy lingo whenever they got together until the older man’s death. Terret falters, though, when Nick’s enigmatic friend Frankie, a Navajo-Italian jewelry designer who calls the shots in the multi-pronged investigation, briefly takes over the narrative from Nick to explain his actions—this sudden switch breaks Nick’s conversational connection with the reader and undercuts Frankie’s mystique with unnecessary exposition. The text includes Nick’s clue lists and a few line drawings of code symbols, floor plans, and landscapes to clarify plot points and add visual interest.
An engaging mix of humor, mystery, history, and geologic curiosities.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9781684632886
Page Count: 280
Publisher: SparkPress
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.
Second of the Walter Nash thrillers—following Nash Falls (2025)—in which the remade hero seeks vengeance.
Due to urgent circumstances, Nash has bulked himself up to become the “muscled and tatted fighting machine” now known as Dillon Hope. His antagonist is Victoria Steers, a global drug dealer who wants him dead. Not realizing his new identity, she enlists Hope to free her mother, Masuyo, from a prison in Myanmar. As an incentive, she shoots one of her associates and threatens to frame Hope for the murder unless he complies. She also wants him to find Nash. He in turn wants to kill Victoria to avenge the death of his innocent daughter, Maggie. “If I go down,” he muses, “I’m taking others with me. Starting with Victoria Steers.” He learns that Victoria had killed all her siblings to eliminate business competition. But as heartless as Victoria is, her mother, Masuyo, is even worse. In league with the Chinese government in a perverse plan to kill as many Americans as possible through fentanyl overdose, she shows contempt for Victoria for her perceived weaknesses. Readers won’t find many happy family relationships here: mother-daughter, father-son, husband-wife—all fraught. Hope’s employer, who accompanies him to Myanmar, is a billionaire chief executive with a dodgy past (i.e., probably killed his father). And there’s a mega-billionaire with an astronomical IQ and ditch-deep morals who, putting it mildly, does not have America’s best interests at heart. As a teenager, he’d defeated two world chess champions; as an adult, he regards his dealings with the world in terms of master chess moves. Only one character seems truly decent and credible—Hiroko, Victoria’s former nanny and lifelong companion, who provides Hope with valuable insights into the Steers’ background, which is partly Chinese. Searing grudges, simple evil, and not-so-simple misunderstandings carry the cast through this complex, action-packed plot. This sequel ties out the loose ends dangling in Nash Falls, which would be helpful to read first. To get to the requisite ending, though, Baldacci takes pains to surprise the reader. It works but often feels forced.
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781538758021
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
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