Fresh, invigorating, and appealing for returning fans and those just joining the series.
In Angliss’ (Fight to the Edge of Earth Tonight, 2015, etc.) sixth book featuring Luthan Fennes, the Australian operative chases a terrorist targeting the oil industry.
Aboard the Duchy of Paris, Fennes, aka the Retimer, and agent-aide Vannier, both sporting aliases, are on a mission. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has assigned the two to stop a terrorist attack on international fuel supplies. But it’s clear their cover is blown when Vannier goes missing and his female companion turns up murdered. The ship docks in Hawaii, and Fennes sprints after suspects through Honolulu, narrowly escaping explosions and a baddie armed with a rocket launcher. A mastermind, meanwhile, whose henchmen are innocents under duress, may have his sights set on the Red Hill fuel facility, and the Retimer has very little time to thwart the strike. The author’s latest in his ongoing series may be his most rousing yet, loaded with action scenes. In fact, once Fennes gets his feet on land, he rarely stops running and ultimately finds himself in a car chase as well as a boat chase (though he’s still pursuing a car). As in previous outings, Fennes is a charismatic, formidable spy, but supporting characters have their times to shine, too. George “Jürgen” Drechsler, for example, Fennes’ agent-aide replacement, snatches one of the baddies before even teaming up with the Retimer. Likewise, Chanty, initially nothing more than Fennes’ “twenty-something blonde ephemeron” on the Duchy of Paris, is a woman for whom the protagonist eventually begins to develop genuine feelings. As in preceding books, Angliss doesn’t shy away from 007 allusions, including Fennes’ gadgets, like the wall-climbing claw-pitons. At least there are no shark-infested pools—only the piranha kind. Nevertheless, the Retimer is a spy with his own style. Who else but the ASIO agent could so eloquently separate his job from a personal life with Chanty: “Until the eclipse of love can outride the rivalry that is espionage, I have to decline, lest my line of work place you in advertent danger.”
Fresh, invigorating, and appealing for returning fans and those just joining the series.Pub Date: May 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5033-3092-4
Page Count: 262
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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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