A generation past Red October, the America-hating bad guys have added spyware, hacking, the dark web, and Bitcoins to those...
Greaney is at the helm of the action-adventure enterprise built by the military maestro from Maryland (Tom Clancy Commander In Chief, 2016, etc.), this time with a devious yet believable story about radical terrorist attacks in America.
Romanian hacker Alexandru Dalcu worms into a lost U.S. Office of Personnel Management file containing American security clearance applications. Dalcu’s techno-skulduggery employs open-source intel "fusing legal data with an illegal theft of data and then weaponizing the results." Wanting another price-boosting oil crisis, a rogue Saudi pays Dalcu to build dossiers on key American anti-terror fighters. The Saud then sells the info to Islamic State group honcho Abu Musa al-Matari. Abu recruits "cleanskins"—radical sympathizers unknown to security services—to strike the targets within America. The who-wants-to-kill-whom is further complicated because Dalcu and ARTD, his shady employer, had been hired for spy work by the People’s Republic of China, and they’re out for blood too. As previously, there’s a difficult buy-in: the chief protagonist is Jack Ryan Jr., son of longtime Clancy hero and now U.S. President Jack Ryan. Junior works (sans Secret Service) as an Uzi-toting operative for Hendley Associates, a private CIA–type company hiring out for blacker-than-black ops. Longtime Clancy characters like the indestructible Clark, Ding, and the president’s nephew, Dominic Caruso, are also Hendley agents. Newbie "Midas" Jankowski, former Delta Force op, adds one more iron-jawed one-dimensional terminator. Action around a female Army helicopter pilot/gunner in Iraq provides an additional minor thread as Hendley operatives Gulfstream from Bucharest to the Blue Ridge Mountains and the tense, fast-paced action reels out ripped-from-headlines homeland terror attacks.
A generation past Red October, the America-hating bad guys have added spyware, hacking, the dark web, and Bitcoins to those ubiquitous AK-47s.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-17681-4
Page Count: 752
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
A very aptly titled gripper (received too late for a full review) that will have Grisham slapping his wife’s wrist in pique over the breakfast toast when he discovers Meltzer’s plot for his second novel (The Tenth Justice, 1997). Attorney Jared Lynch’s Manhattan firm takes on the defense of a psychopath and hands the case over to Jared, who soon finds that he’ll die if he loses this case. Meanwhile, in the assistant district attorney’s office, Jared’s wife Sara has the same case passed down to her and a similar stricture applies: She’ll also die if she loses. And further, although prosecutor and defense attorney sleep together, the law forbids any trading of information between them, despite the lethal warnings that neither can tell the other about. To top all this off, author Meltzer is an attorney himself, which lends the novel’s dialogue a sparkling undercurrent of real-life chitchat, not to mention the mutual saber-sharpening that readers will quickly pick up on and enjoy as a bonus. (Author tour)
Pub Date: May 13, 1998
ISBN: 0-688-15090-X
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1998
Like Jeffery Deaver, veteran Coben (Stay Close, 2012, etc.) is a magician who’s a lot more fun to watch when you don’t know...
Six years after the summer girlfriend he’s convinced is the love of his life throws him over to marry someone else, a shocking series of revelations draws a Massachusetts professor back to her.
“Promise me you’ll leave us alone,” Natalie Avery demanded of Jake Fisher after her wedding to surgeon Todd Sanderson. And for six years Jake’s done exactly that. But the news of Todd’s death rekindles his desire to see Natalie again. What could be the harm, now that she’s been widowed by the robbers who shot Todd to death? When he travels to their home in South Carolina, however, he walks into mystery and denial. Todd’s widow isn’t Natalie, but someone named Delia. Natalie’s sister Julie Pottham denies knowing anything about Jake. So do Cookie, the Kraftsboro Bookstore Café owner who served Jake and Natalie all those scones, and Rev. Kelly, who officiated at the wedding. In fact, there’s no record that Natalie and Todd were ever married at all. An anonymous email telling Jake, “You made a promise,” grieves Jake but doesn’t deter him from his search. Neither does a close encounter with a pair of killers who want to know where Natalie is and are certain Jake can tell them. Up till now, Jake’s nightmare is as infernally all-absorbing as Dr. David Beck’s in Tell No One (2001). But the discovery of a clue that begins to unravel the mystery also sends the tale spiraling past the bounds of plausibility, even for a thriller, until Jake’s quest for the truth entangles benevolent conspiracies, hired killers, multiple disappearances, the Mafia and all the people besides Natalie that Jake has held nearest and dearest.
Like Jeffery Deaver, veteran Coben (Stay Close, 2012, etc.) is a magician who’s a lot more fun to watch when you don’t know how he’s fooling you.Pub Date: March 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-525-95348-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
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