Henshaw’s narrative is a high-tension page-turner, and his tough-minded, independent, and deadly Kyra Stryker is ready to...
After a vital clandestine U.S. spy network is gutted by a defector, CIA Red Cell agent Kyra Stryker is forced to make a daring last-ditch attempt to avert disaster.
Real-life intelligence analyst Henshaw (Cold Shot, 2014, etc.) has set this tale of international intrigue in the immediate future. Russia’s still a bully. The Putin kleptocracy remains in power, considering the U.S. its main enemy. Gen. Arkady Lavrov, head of the military intelligence agency and chief of the Foundation for Advanced Research, especially enjoys stepping on Yankee toes, slipping stealth technology to China and nukes from Iran to Venezuela. The CIA put the screws to those adventures. Now, rumors suggest the clandestine-weapons-trading FAR will sell an electromagnetic pulse weapon to Syria. The situation worsens when CIA agent Alden Maines offers to turn mole for the Russians—this needs better motivation—but is double-crossed. Lavrov personally tortures Maines and gets the identities of every CIA asset in Russia. The clandestine-weapons quandary takes a back seat as Red Cell leader Jonathan Burke and Stryker make a Maines damage-control run to Berlin. People die. Next attempting to rescue Russians working for the CIA, Stryker goes lone-wolf to Moscow. The amoral yet philosophical Lavrov makes a worthy villain, compelled to confront his counterpart, Anatoly Grigoriyev, the FSB (the old KGB) chief who railed against the "madness of selling our technologies to third-world runts" and who now resents Lavrov’s dangerous ambitions. The settings seem spot-on, whether a luxurious Moscow CIA safe house, an abandoned Soviet military base in eastern Germany, or the Oval Office, especially as Henshaw’s cast of Washington old hands deals with a skeptical young President Daniel Rostow.
Henshaw’s narrative is a high-tension page-turner, and his tough-minded, independent, and deadly Kyra Stryker is ready to run with the likes of Reacher or Bourne.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-0031-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days...
In 1876, professor Edward Cope takes a group of students to the unforgiving American West to hunt for dinosaur fossils, and they make a tremendous discovery.
William Jason Tertullius Johnson, son of a shipbuilder and beneficiary of his father’s largess, isn’t doing very well at Yale when he makes a bet with his archrival (because every young man has one): accompany “the bone professor” Othniel Marsh to the West to dig for dinosaur fossils or pony up $1,000, but Marsh will only let Johnson join if he has a skill they can use. They need a photographer, so Johnson throws himself into the grueling task of learning photography, eventually becoming proficient. When Marsh and the team leave without him, he hitches a ride with another celebrated paleontologist, Marsh’s bitter rival, Edward Cope. Despite warnings about Indian activity, into the Judith badlands they go. It’s a harrowing trip: they weather everything from stampeding buffalo to back-breaking work, but it proves to be worth it after they discover the teeth of what looks to be a giant dinosaur, and it could be the discovery of the century if they can only get them back home safely. When the team gets separated while transporting the bones, Johnson finds himself in Deadwood and must find a way to get the bones home—and stay alive doing it. The manuscript for this novel was discovered in Crichton’s (Pirate Latitudes, 2009, etc.) archives by his wife, Sherri, and predates Jurassic Park (1990), but if readers are looking for the same experience, they may be disappointed: it’s strictly formulaic stuff. Famous folk like the Earp brothers make appearances, and Cope and Marsh, and the feud between them, were very real, although Johnson is the author’s own creation. Crichton takes a sympathetic view of American Indians and their plight, and his appreciation of the American West, and its harsh beauty, is obvious.
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days of American paleontology.Pub Date: May 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-247335-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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