A fine read with a heroine too honorable to shoot the dog.
Katarina Hollister is a second-generation U.S. foreign service officer who’s been expelled from Cuba on her first tour and sent to Kyrgyzstan, her late mother's homeland.
That suits Kate fine, as she attended high school there during her father's diplomatic mission. She speaks fluent Kyrgyz and has strong ties to the people and culture—but not to its dictatorial government. She blames president-for-life Nuran Eraliev for the murders of her parents, and naturally she hates him for it. Kate’s Uncle Harry, the current U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, asks her to get inside the underground democracy movement, learn the identity of its leader (who has the nom de guerre Seitek), and let him know the U.S. can help. This unusual plot setup, with the main character nearly as Kyrgyz as she is American, lets the reader see the action up close and in vivid, colorful detail. Kate’s mission is just as personal as it is official, as she seeks friends and an aunt swept up by the oppressive regime. She must infiltrate Prison Number One for answers and then escape the clutches of the torturer-in-chief nicknamed Torquemada. That will take doing what’s possible, not what’s perfect, her uncle advises: “You should never allow the best to be the enemy of the good.” But CIA Station Chief Larry Crespo’s advice is less avuncular: “sometimes, sweetie, you have to take your favorite dog out behind the barn and shoot it.” Crespo accuses Kate of violating “every imaginable principle of diplomatic practice,” but rules are made for fictional heroines to break. On the other side, the dictatorial system eats its own, and Eraliev and his henchmen are “dancing in the dragon’s jaws.”
A fine read with a heroine too honorable to shoot the dog.Pub Date: May 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-17502-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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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