Genre fans will savor the espionage and political intrigue while cheering a spy who can dodge bullets with sophistication.
Australian spy Luthan Fennes returns for his third outing in Angliss’ (Stingerbones, 2013, etc.) thriller series, this time to find who’s behind the bombings of German embassies throughout the world.
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation operative Fennes, aka the Retimer, is in Ankara, Turkey, looking into connections between Turkey’s German Embassy and recent bombings at the German Embassy in Australia. He doesn’t prevent another bombing, but he does uncover info on Johann Weber, who works at the embassy and may have been a contact for the bombers. While Turkish police believe Fennes is responsible for the bombings, he searches for the person who ordered the embassy attacks. After Fennes narrowly escapes an assassination attempt, villagers save the injured man, and he returns the favor by tracking down Asli, a victim of human traffickers who’s been missing for two years. Angliss’ writing style takes some getting used to; he’s prone to uncommon words—e.g., “refaced” (here, meaning to face someone or something again)—and strange wording, as when Fennes “entered the Internet” on his mobile phone. But the espionage, reminiscent of James Bond novels, is centered on the protagonist’s mental capacity over physical prowess. Even the action scenes, of which there are quite a few, are meticulously plotted; it’s less about Fennes’ instinctual reaction than a distinct assessment each time someone shoots at him or tosses a grenade in his direction. Fennes also manages a great deal of chic: He’s often adorned in a black suit and tie (for that matter, so are many of the villains) and drives a top-of-the-line vehicle, like a BMW or his souped-up Rallyon, which he equates with the “famous modern Batmobile.” Asli acts as a romantic interest of sorts, but Fennes’ apparent love for a woman he hardly knows seems out of place and happens so quickly that it’s not very believable. Angliss takes his hero on an adventure around the globe—Moscow, Iraq, North Korea—and he augments his story with humor and dishy one-liners, as when an ensnared suspect threatens to kill Fennes and the spy nonchalantly responds, “I’ve heard that a million times.”
Genre fans will savor the espionage and political intrigue while cheering a spy who can dodge bullets with sophistication.Pub Date: March 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-1495448799
Page Count: 270
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 8, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An addictive psychological thriller.
When a mysterious novel appears on her bedside table, a successful documentary filmmaker finds herself face to face with a secret that threatens to unravel life as she knows it.
Catherine Ravenscroft has built a dream life, or close to it: the devoted husband, the house in London, the award-winning career as a documentary filmmaker. And though she’s never quite bonded with her 25-year-old son the way she’d hoped, he’s doing fine—there are worse things than being an electronics salesman. But when she stumbles across a sinister novel called The Perfect Stranger—no one’s quite sure how it came into the house—Catherine sees herself in its pages, living out scenes from her past she’d hoped to forget. It’s a threat—but from whom? And why now, 20 years after the fact? Meanwhile, Stephen Brigstocke, a retired teacher, widowed and in pain, is desperate to exact revenge on Catherine and make her pay for what happened all those years ago. The story is told in alternating chapters, Catherine's in the third-person and Stephen's in the first, as the two orbit each other, predator and prey, and the novel moves between the past and the present to paint a portrait of two troubled families with trauma bubbling under the surface. As their lives become increasingly entangled, Stephen’s obsession grows, Catherine’s world crumbles, and it becomes clear that—in true thriller form—everything may not be as it seems. But how much destruction must be wrought before the truth comes out? And when it does, will there be anything left to salvage? While the long buildup to the big reveal begins to drag, Knight’s elegant plot and compelling (if not unexpected) characters keep the heart of the novel beating even when the pacing falters. Atmospheric and twisting and ripe for TV adaptation, this debut novel never strays far from convention, but that doesn’t make it any less of a page-turner.
An addictive psychological thriller.Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236225-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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