A fast-paced, exhilarating thriller set in Beirut.
After a man gets out of prison, he finds himself on a dangerous mission in this novel.
O’Hara Poit thought his release from a New York prison was a lucky break. Unfortunately, he now discovers that he is in debt to Sen. Tade and a group of powerful people who orchestrated his release. Jared Ingleton, aka Red, O’Hara’s estranged best friend, is involved in a militia with perilous plans for America. The senator tells O’Hara: “If Ingleton’s crew makes it back to the streets of this country, there’s trouble ahead. They will commit acts of terror that cause America to tear apart at the seams.” Tade sends O’Hara to Beirut under an alias in order to find Red and stop him. But as O’Hara arrives in Lebanon, he finds new enemies; new friends, Layla Haddad and Omar al-Awamleh; and a new love. Through Layla, he meets the beautiful and amazing Dina, who soon captures his affections. But as O’Hara tries to get Red’s attention, he ends up in a troubling position. After a brawl at the bar Layla works at, O’Hara must do a job for the owner to make up for the trouble he caused. But O’Hara finds he can’t complete the task in good conscience, and soon he and his friends are struggling to survive in a world of criminals. As O’Hara strives to get out of Lebanon alive, he discovers that he has been misled. He is now part of something much bigger than he imagined. McCaffrey has crafted an excellent thriller. He effortlessly interweaves politics into the gripping narrative. The author’s writing radiates authenticity and realism. Sometimes O’Hara seems passive, as when he is sent on a job by the bar owner. But the complex and intriguing characters as well as their relationships and the humorous dialogue enliven the engaging story. O’Hara is a relatable main character who does what he has to in order to survive while maintaining a generous heart and kind soul. His romance with Dina is endearing and creates a nice respite from the electrifying action scenes. The ending implies that there will be a sequel, which many readers will look forward to.
A fast-paced, exhilarating thriller set in Beirut.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2022
ISBN: 9781685130022
Page Count: 175
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2023
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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