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
The perfect gift for well-read mystery mavens who complain that they don’t write them like they used to.
A ghoulish killer brings a Boston bookseller’s list of perfect fictional murders to life—that is, to repeated, emphatic death.
The Red House Mystery, Malice Aforethought, The A.B.C. Murders, Double Indemnity, Strangers on a Train, The Drowner, Deathtrap, The Secret History: They may not be the best mysteries, reflects Malcolm Kershaw, but they feature the most undetectable murders, as he wrote on a little-read blog post when he was first hired at Old Devils Bookstore. Now that he owns the store with mostly silent partner Brian Murray, a semifamous mystery writer, that post has come back to haunt him. FBI agent Gwen Mulvey has observed at least three unsolved murders, maybe more, that seem to take their cues from the stories on Mal’s list. What does he think about possible links among them? she wonders. The most interesting thing he thinks is something he’s not going to share with her: He’s hiding a secret that would tie him even more closely to that list than she imagines. And while Mal is fretting about what he can do to help stop the violence without tipping his own hand, the killer, clearly untrammeled by any such scruples, continues down the list of fictional blueprints for perfect murders. Swanson (Before She Knew Him, 2019, etc.) jumps the shark early from genre thrills to metafictional puzzles, but despite a triple helping of cleverness that might seem like a fatal overdose, the pleasures of following, and trying to anticipate, a narrator who’s constantly second- and third-guessing himself and everyone around him are authentic and intense. If the final revelations are anticlimactic, that’s only because you wish the mounting complications, like a magician’s showiest routine, could go on forever.
The perfect gift for well-read mystery mavens who complain that they don’t write them like they used to.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-283820-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Mystery, danger, and sexual tension abound in an action-packed thriller that breaks plenty of heads but no new ground.
Sparks fly as a woman with extraordinary abilities fights her attraction to a dangerous freelance consultant.
Dr. Kendra Michaels has worked with former FBI Agent Adam Lynch before (Double Blind, 2018), but she’s furious with him for getting her tossed out of Afghanistan after she sustained a minor wound while trying to root out corruption. Kendra, who was blind until an experimental operation restored her sight at 20, has highly developed senses of smell, hearing, and spatial awareness that she’s used to help the FBI and CIA in many difficult cases. Now, as she returns to the U.S., they have another one she can’t resist investigating. Elaine Wessler and Ronald Kim, both staff members at her old school, the Woodward Academy for the Physically Disabled in Oceanside, California, have been found murdered for no apparent reason, and FBI Special Agent Michael Griffin is anxious to use her skills and inside knowledge. Elaine had been fostering an unusual guide dog, Harley, who's had problems adjusting since the child he was working with was killed in a gas-main explosion. Now that Elaine is gone, his unearthly howls are upsetting the students. Kendra talks her best friend, Olivia, who’s blind, into sharing custody of Harley until they can find him the right home. Meanwhile, she turns up clues the FBI team missed and is rewarded for her efforts with a bomb planted in her car. It turns out to be fake, but it’s still a potent warning to walk away. Returning from Afghanistan to help Kendra, Lynch finds her still angry with him and intent on resisting his charms. Her friend Jessie Mercado, a private eye, turns up to help extricate her from a dangerous situation and sticks around to join the hunt for the killers. It will take all of them, including Harley, to solve the violent, complex case and get the school Kendra loves back on track.
Mystery, danger, and sexual tension abound in an action-packed thriller that breaks plenty of heads but no new ground.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5387-6292-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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