Less peril and more mystification than usual. The conscientiously plotted result provides less tension and a longer wait...
For her 27th suspense novel, Clark (Daddy’s Little Girl, 2002, etc.) turns to the founding figure of the modern Gothic: the mysterious husband who may or may not be a killer.
Twenty-two years ago, Kathryn Lansing, a little girl visiting the Carrington estate with her landscaper father, overheard an argument over money between an unseen man and woman. That evening, neighbor Susan Althorp, 18, vanished after scion Peter Carrington drove her home from a dinner dance on the estate. Two weeks later, the Carringtons fired Jonathan Lansing, and two weeks after that, he disappeared as well, a presumed suicide. The police investigated but could never find enough evidence to indict Peter for murder, not even when his pregnant wife Grace drowned in their swimming pool hours after a party in which he excoriated her drinking. That’s a lot of backstory, but Clark folds it into her narrative as expertly as a chef preparing a lump-free sauce. Once Kay Lansing asks Peter to host a reception to benefit the Englewood (N.J.) library, events move fast. Peter’s soon swept her off her feet in an utterly unconvincing romance; Susan Althorp’s dying mother calls Peter a murderer in a national magazine; Kay sees that her bridegroom is a sleepwalker; bodies turn up on the estate; the D.A. indicts Peter; his stepmother Elaine Walker, desperate to rescue her gallery-owner son Richard from his latest gambling debts, blackmails Kay with what looks like a damning piece of evidence. Kay knows her husband wouldn’t hurt a fly when he’s awake, but as a sleepwalker, could he be channeling The Moonstone along with Rebecca?
Less peril and more mystification than usual. The conscientiously plotted result provides less tension and a longer wait before Clark’s trademark velvet-glove momentum kicks in.Pub Date: April 3, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7432-6491-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2007
As with all of Greaney’s work, this is a fun read. If only all our wars were fiction.
Russia launches war in Europe and Africa in this military thriller reminiscent of the late Tom Clancy.
A small group of Chinese communist special forces sneaks into Taiwan to assassinate a politician and provoke a war. This attracts intense U.S. attention—perfect timing for Russia to launch Operation Red Metal and “retain its proper place in the world.” The Russians' ultimate goal is to keep control of a rare-earth mine in Kenya, for which they need to wield “a scalpel through the heart of Europe” to destroy AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command headquartered in Germany. They kill Western satellites to take out GPS and make Europe deaf, mute, and blind. On Christmas Day, Russian trains disguised as civilian transport deliver offensive forces into Europe, unloading troops and tanks. They also attack in Kenya, where battles rage. NATO hasn’t detected this military buildup and is taken completely by surprise. A Russian general opines that the U.S. can’t fight a conventional force anymore, embroiled as it’s been in Afghanistan. Ha! Tell it to the Marines, like Lt. Col. Dan Connolly, who knows “this world’s a damn dangerous place” and figures out what the enemy is up to. The war lasts about a week, plenty of time for intense battle scenes and the distinct possibility of tactical nukes. Having produced well over 600 pages, Greaney and Rawlings, his Marine co-author, had a bout of logorrhea, but the collaboration has yielded plenty of realism. There are some good lines, as when an A-10 pilot strafes the ground while screaming “Die, Commie, die!” (He apparently didn’t get the memo about the USSR.) But the best line: “And as long as we get to pop a bunch of those Russkies, death ain’t but a thing.” Readers will be humming "The Marines’ Hymn” after finishing this paean to the U.S. Marines. Hoorah!
As with all of Greaney’s work, this is a fun read. If only all our wars were fiction.Pub Date: July 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-451-49041-4
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
A satisfying puzzler, one to shelve alongside le Carré, Forsyth, and other masters of foreign intrigue.
“It is a dangerous time to be alive.” Indeed, as this fast-paced thriller by seasoned mysterian Pavone (The Travelers, 2016, etc.) proves.
A siren wails in Paris, a once-rare sound often heard in these times of terror. It’s gone off because a jihadi has strapped a bomb to himself and is standing in front of the Louvre, “in the epicenter of Western civilization,” waiting for his moment. But is he a jihadi? Who’s put him up to this dastardly deed, and why? That’s for Kate Moore, deep-cover CIA agent, “sidewalk-swimming in a sea of expat moms,” to suss out. Kate lives in a shadow world, so hidden away that even her hedge-fund-master husband doesn’t have a clue about what she does: “Dexter has been forced to accept that she’s entitled to her secrets,” Pavone writes, adding, “He’s had plenty of his own.” Indeed, and in the shadowy parallel world of speculative finance, he’s teamed up with a fast-living entrepreneur who wants nothing more than to become superrich and run off with his “assistant-concubine.” Hunter Forsyth is about to announce a huge deal, but suddenly he’s disappeared, whisked away by shadowy people who, by the thin strings of suspense, have something to do with that bomb across town. So does a vengeful young mom, strapped to a useless husband and bent on payback for a long-ago slight. All this is red meat to Kate, who’s tired of the domestic life, no matter how much a sham, and is happier than a clam when “running her network of journalists, bloggers, influencers, as well as drug dealers, thieves, prostitutes, and cops, plus diplomats and soldiers, maitre d’s and concierges and bartenders and shopkeepers.” With all those players, mercenaries, and assorted bad guys thrown into the mix, you just know that the storyline is going to be knotty, and it resolves in a messy spatter of violence that’s trademark Pavone and decidedly not for the squeamish.
A satisfying puzzler, one to shelve alongside le Carré, Forsyth, and other masters of foreign intrigue.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6150-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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