Greaney dumps a ton of trouble on the hero, and there’s never a dull page.
The title doesn’t say much. Greaney could accurately have called this military thriller Bloodbath: A Love Story.
Josh Duffy loses a leg doing mercenary work in Lebanon, so three years later he has sunk to being “the sheriff of Tysons Galleria” in Virginia, ashamed that he can’t fully provide for his wife, Nikki, and their two children. She’s an ex-Army captain and chopper pilot who’d been shot down in Iraq and rescued by—wait for it—Josh Duffy. True love and hard times follow; a nasty, failed protection detail in the Middle East leaves the protectee dead and Josh’s life forever changed. Now Nikki is a full-time mom running a small cleaning business to tide them over. Then Duffy has a seemingly chance encounter with another merc at the mall who expresses shock that “Duff from Jalalabad is a fucking mall cop!” The friend quickly sets him up with Armored Saint, which has a rep of being the worst private military contractor on the planet. “Armored Saint? Those guys are psychos,” says Duffy. “This gig is dog shit,” says his old pal, “but it pays through the roof” and will get Duffy out of his immediate financial straits. Desperate, he signs up for a three-week gig to lead one of three teams protecting a U.N. delegation that hopes to broker peace among warring cartels in Mexico’s Sierra Madre. It should be a straightforward mission and easy money. But even before they reach the treacherous ridge called the Devil’s Spine, guns start blazing and bodies start falling. Josh’s own team is a handful, questioning his leadership with smartass comments even before they learn about his prosthetic leg. Meanwhile, Josh and Nikki are often on the phone as he tries with increasing difficulty to reassure her that all is well. She wants him home safely, but at the rate things are going, he’ll come home in a box. How she shows her fierce love for her husband is both implausible and contrived, but it’s great fun for the reader.
Greaney dumps a ton of trouble on the hero, and there’s never a dull page.Pub Date: July 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-43687-5
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
Race and privilege light the fuse in this classics-laced whodunit.
Class lines morph into clash lines when British aristocrats and police face off in this dead-on debut.
On the night before an Instagram influencer is found dead, Rupert Beauchamp, heir to a baronetcy, holds a tawdry black-tie 30th birthday bash at a London McDonald's, where guests wash down fast food with champagne and coke. The dead woman turns out to be Rupert's girlfriend, Clemmie O’Hara, whose body is discovered on Hampstead Heath by DI Caius Beauchamp (no relation to Rupert, but it's an intriguing coincidence that eventually explains a lot about Caius). Clemmie's death is convenient for the nasty Rupert because he's always loved Nell Waddingham, whom he can't marry because she's not posh enough. Nell works in publishing and adores classic novels, especially Jane Austen's, which she loves to read and post about. She’s Vassell’s most perfectly wrought character and, along with Caius, one of the few likable ones. On a recent trip to Greece with Rupert and Clemmie, she experienced a terrible act of violence (only hinted at later in the book) that she can't seem to understand or process. Caius is clear-eyed about what happened to her and wants justice for her and Clemmie. He's not afraid to set his sights on Rupert, even though his elite-enamored boss tells him to back off. Rupert, like all the other aimless upper-class millennials in this novel, can buy his way out of pretty much any criminal behavior, but will he get away with murder? There are plenty of other people in Clemmie's circle with strong motives, and Vassell serves them up with gimlet-eyed precision. This is a sturdy police procedural whose plot is sometimes knocked off kilter by Vassell's frequent sendups of her morally bankrupt characters, but the forthright Caius is a beacon of justice who makes this debut shine.
Race and privilege light the fuse in this classics-laced whodunit.Pub Date: Nov. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780593685945
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce 13-year-old girl propels this dark, moving thriller.
A police chief who never grew up and a girl who never had a childhood try to solve the murder of someone they love.
A tiny, picturesque town on the California coast is an emotional prison for the characters of this impressive, often lyrical thriller. Its two main characters are a cop with an improbable naïveté and a child too old for her years. Walk (short for Walker, his last name) is chief of the two-person police department in Cape Haven and a native son. He’s kind and conscientious and haunted by a crime that occurred when he was a teenager, the death of a girl named Sissy Radley, whose body Walk discovered. Duchess Radley is that child’s niece, the daughter of Star Radley, the town’s doomed beauty. Most men lust after Star, including several of her neighbors and perhaps a sinister real estate developer named Dickie Darke. But Star is a substance abuser in a downward spiral, and her fatherless kids, Duchess and her younger brother, Robin, get, at best, Star’s benign neglect. Walk, who’s known Star since they were kids, is the family’s protector. As the book begins, all of them are coming to terms with the return to town of Vincent King. He’s Walk’s former best friend, Star’s former boyfriend, and he’s served a 30-year prison term for the death of Sissy (and that of a man he killed in prison). Someone will end up dead, and the murder mystery structures the book. But its core is Duchess, a rage-filled girl who is her brother’s tender, devoted caretaker, a beauty like her mother, and a fist-swinging fighter who introduces herself as “the outlaw Duchess Day Radley.” Whitaker crafts an absorbing plot around crimes in the present and secrets long buried, springing surprises to the very end.
A fierce 13-year-old girl propels this dark, moving thriller.Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-75966-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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