A rewarding read and a fine finale for the Smith-Renko team.
The 11th and final installment in the Arkady Renko series that began with Gorky Park in 1981.
The Russian homicide detective has lived under communism, witnessed its fall, and now lives during Vladimir Putin’s reign. As Russia launches its “special military operation” against Ukraine, Renko must investigate the brutal murder of the deputy minister of defense in Moscow’s Hotel Ukraine. Apparently, two people bashed his head in using two different types of weapons. Adding to the challenge, Renko suffers from Parkinson’s disease, making it increasingly difficult to function. He knows it will only get worse, though he insists he’s not an invalid. His adopted son says, “Even with Parkinson’s you’re the best they’ve got.” Meanwhile, he’s in love with Tatiana Petrovna, a Moscow-based correspondent for the New York Times who hates injustice and is “constitutionally incapable of seeing a bear without poking it.” She wants to report on Bucha, a Ukrainian city that suffered horrific destruction at the hands of the Russians. Renko’s investigation takes him there as well. Is the killing tied in with the invasion? Renko and Petrovna take extraordinary risks for the sake of finding the truth. The unseen presence above it all is Putin, and anyone who threatens him might as well drink tea mixed with heartbreak grass, a deadly poison said to have been used on some of his enemies. Renko and Tatiana both face that threat as they peer into the abyss of death. Aside from the action scenes, Renko offers interesting observations. He is “Russian to his core,” although love of country does not extend to love of its leaders. He thinks the only book that explains his beloved country is Alice in Wonderland. And he opines on the “fundamental truth” about love, that it means wanting what’s best for the other over yourself. Given their tribulations and given that this book finishes the series, the ending could be tragic or hopeful. Either way, Arkady Renko’s career is complete. Author Martin Cruz Smith has had Parkinson’s for decades and says this is his last book.
A rewarding read and a fine finale for the Smith-Renko team.Pub Date: July 8, 2025
ISBN: 9781982188382
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
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The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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