It’s by-the-numbers stuff, with the requisite villainy, continent-hopping, décolletage, neat tools and cliffhangers. But, of...
Another timely, techno-geeky thriller from the Tom Clancy franchise.
Greaney (Command Authority, 2013, etc.) populates his latest with most of the bad guys of the “axis of evil,” and then some. As the nicely convoluted storyline sets out, the baddies are a cell led by a “lieutenant in the Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades,” which is to say—and here’s one timely bit—“the militant wing of the Palestinian political organization Hamas.” They’re far from home, plying the waters off India, and they’re bad luck for an Israeli expat who just happens to be a pal of Dominic Caruso, secret agent extraordinaire and, as it happens, nephew to the hyperactive world policeman Jack Ryan. Nothing gets Caruso’s goat more than terrorists freely working evil in the world, but setting to work to do justice, he finds that he’s got quite a puzzle on his hands—for bound up in it all is an enigmatic former NSA agent who’s on the run with a bunch of damaging information on his thumb drive. All that’s needed to complete the tableau is a shirtless Russian head of state, and Greaney comes pretty close to obliging with Spetsnaz toughs and, for good measure, Venezuelan spies, since, natch, Putinistas and Chavezistas and Ayatollistas share the goal of subverting the interests of the civilized world. The yarn is at once shaggy dog improbable and highly realistic, and Greaney incorporates the late Clancy’s fascination for military and intelligence hardware, for micro-Uzis and Intelink-TS backbones and chase-worthy vehicles (“In the dark both SUVs looked black, but once Ethan got closer he realized one was dark green”). And, of course, he works in a bevy of smart and lovely women who know both how to mend wounds and cause them.
It’s by-the-numbers stuff, with the requisite villainy, continent-hopping, décolletage, neat tools and cliffhangers. But, of course, that’s just what Clancy’s fans read him for, and Greaney carries on that entertaining tradition seamlessly.Pub Date: July 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-17334-9
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
Twisty and propulsive.
A first date takes a sinister turn for a troubled young woman in Walker’s third psychological thriller.
It’s the day after Laura Lochner’s date with a man she met online, and she hasn’t returned to the Connecticut home of her sister, Rosie, her brother-in-law, Joe, and their little boy, Mason, where she’s been staying after a bad breakup. Rosie fears the worst, but Joe advises caution. After all, Laura is an adult and can have some fun, right? But Rosie has a bad feeling. Laura won’t answer her phone, and Rosie only has more questions after poking around online for info on Laura’s date, Jonathan Fields. Rosie eventually calls the police, and events begin to cascade like dominoes. Interspersed with Rosie’s attempt to trace Laura’s movements and get a handle on the guy she went out with is Laura’s first-person account of the actual date as well as enlightening snippets of sessions between Laura and her therapist. Laura’s is the most compelling part—a tormented, often prickly piece of storytelling by a woman carrying the pain of a horrible event that happened in high school and feelings of abandonment by a father who always seemed to love Rosie more. Laura’s desire to be loved is all-consuming, but her conviction that she is not worthy of love is heartbreaking. She sees subterfuge in nearly everything Jonathan says and does. Meanwhile, Rosie must come to terms with some ugly surprises of her own as she digs into their past. As the timelines inevitably converge, Walker’s clever misdirection paves the way to a truly chilling finale, and she has plenty of insightful things to say about the blame placed on women by society and themselves for the idiotic, careless, and sometimes downright evil things men do.
Twisty and propulsive.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-19867-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
Fans—and Grisham has endless numbers of them—will be pleased.
The prolific Grisham (The Reckoning, 2018, etc.) turns in another skillfully told procedural.
Pay attention to the clerical collar that Cullen Post occasionally dons in Grisham’s latest legal thriller. Post comes by the garb honestly, being both priest and investigative lawyer, his Guardian Ministries devoted to freeing inmates who have been wrongly imprisoned. Says an adversary at the start of the book, learning that his conviction is about to be overturned, “Is this a joke, Post?” Post replies: “Oh sure. Nothing but laughs over here on death row.” Aided by an Atlantan whom he sprang from the slam earlier, Post turns his energies to trying to do the same for Quincy Miller, a black man imprisoned for the murder of a white Florida lawyer who “had been shot twice in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun, and there wasn’t much left of his face.” It’s to such icky details that Post’s meticulous mind turns: Why a shotgun and not a pistol, as most break-ins involve? Who would have done such a thing—surely not the guy's wife, and surely not for a measly $2 million in life insurance? As Grisham strews the path with red herrings, Post, though warned off by a smart forensic scientist, begins to sniff out clues that point to a culprit closer to the courtroom bench than the sandy back roads of rural Florida. Grisham populates his yarn with occasionally goofy details—a prosecuting attorney wants Post disbarred “for borrowing a pubic hair” from the evidence in a case—but his message is constant throughout: The “innocent people rotting away in prison” whom Post champions are there because they are black and brown, put there by mostly white jurors, and the real perp “knew that a black guy in a white town would be much easier to convict.” The tale is long and sometimes plods, especially in its courtroom scenes, but it has a satisfying payoff—and look out for that collar at the end.
Fans—and Grisham has endless numbers of them—will be pleased.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54418-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
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