A captivating financial thriller that works despite some daunting jargon.
A retired computer genius is called into action when the world financial markets are at risk in Mattison’s thriller.
In the year 2027, a year after his abrupt departure from the ICARUS project, Rory O’Connor is living off the grid in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He’s lost his best friend, Peter Costello, in a violent robbery in Chicago, and left his job and the city—his days in international finance and intrigue are behind him. Or so he thinks. As ICARUS, the game-changing quantum AI platform that operates the world’s financial markets (“Co-located servers, fiber networks, and complex algorithms had created a stock market run more by machines than by men or women”), launches its final phase, some unusual activity online lures Rory back into action. A sometimes-convoluted narrative finds Rory working with Peter’s sister, Mia, along with Rory and Peter’s former boss, Milton McGrady, the CEO of a company called Celtic Capital, to beat bad guys from China, Russia, and India to the contents of an encrypted thumb drive left by Peter. The stakes include dire consequences not only for the individuals involved but for the world financial order as well. Rory and Mia fight the good fight around the world, mostly in Switzerland and Chicago. Along the way, of course, they fall for each other, increasing the tension when they both get into life-threatening situations at the Basel headquarters of ICARUS, a complex containing a mainframe called Quoz. Despite its challenging-to-parse subject matter—including AI, the financial world, politics of world powers, crypto-currency, and the blockchain—the novel is an exciting read. The author has created a likeable and relatable hero in Rory, and Mia is a worthy sidekick. Together, they offset the book’s financial and political mumbo-jumbo with big doses of humor and some exciting action sequences. Readers’ enjoyment won’t be stymied much by the lack of an MBA or intimate knowledge of finance; Mattison explains enough for readers to keep up and knows how to spin an exciting yarn.
A captivating financial thriller that works despite some daunting jargon.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798888452028
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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