Lee’s charm and tenacity can conquer any obstacle, even an unsteady premise.
Former CIA analyst Lee Carruthers returns in Larew’s (The Spider Catchers, 2013) thriller, this time searching for a murderer in Dubai and stepping into the middle of a war between arms dealers.
Lee knows it was her former employers who sent Cynthia Branson to her door. Cynthia wants to know where her two-years-absent husband, George, is so she can serve him with divorce papers. George was killed in Dubai, but the CIA is reluctant to tell Cynthia, because it doesn’t know why; Lee, hired by Cynthia, is determined to do the detective work herself. But she finds more than a simple murder: George, who had been using false identities in both Dubai and Istanbul, had more than one stash of uncut diamonds. Furthermore, Felix Gringikov, a Belarusian arms dealer for whom George had worked, has been missing for a couple of years. Lee suspects Felix’s Russian rival, Sergei Malyakov, of the murder, but that doesn’t explain who’s following her. The author’s appealing protagonist makes a welcome second appearance in a story that’s stronger and more riveting than her previous outing. The plot isn’t without its snags: it’s never clear why Lee simply doesn’t tell Cynthia that George is dead or why she stays on the case after her client’s death, which even Lee eventually questions. Most readers, however, will likely forgive such flaws because the story packs on suspense when Lee consistently spots her on a multi-country journey, from the warm Dubai winter to cold, snowy Istanbul. Supporting characters are outstanding, especially Lee’s seemingly endless contacts, including stockbroker Willy Soo and her quasi-partner, Fred Atkins, an ex-Marine whom Lee affectionately (or not) refers to as the Marlboro Man. The fact that Lee is still a standout among all the characters is a testament to her aptitude: she’s comfortable around computers, with a Glock in her hand, or, if the situation calls for it, in a show of fisticuffs. Larew’s narrative is so incisive that Lee’s frequent updates on the case—internally or to characters in the vicinity—really aren’t necessary. Readers will probably guess one plot twist, but another twist or two aren’t as easy to predict.
Lee’s charm and tenacity can conquer any obstacle, even an unsteady premise.Pub Date: April 30, 2015
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 243
Publisher: Artemis Hunter Press
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2015
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
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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