A rare thriller that successfully combines quiet character work with timely, global intrigue.
In this third espionage thriller in Maloof’s series, Kate Preacher is in bad shape, and the massive global conspiracy she’s been fighting is entering its endgame.
Following the events of the two previous novels, Relentless (2023) and Unstoppable (2025), superspy Kate is injured, and her network of allies and family members are either scattered and deceased. The world faces a grave threat from a massively powerful artificial intelligence named RILEE, which has been aggregating an unprecedented cache of information, including genetic and behavioral data, from people around the world. Some chapters present the point of view of Rileyne Mueller, the daughter and heir apparent to Klaus Mueller—the recently deceased mastermind behind the mysterious high-tech, AI-driven facility deep below the Alps. Others feature a genius hacker, known as Nomad, who’s also enmeshed in the AI plot. Maloof’s third series entry brings together and closes out several plot threads while leaving plenty of room for future stories in this world. He combines thriller and espionage tropes with contemporary concerns about AI and global oligarchy. The story zips around the globe to Manhattan, Paris, the Azores, Davos, and so on, and a dizzying assortment of intelligence organizations, clandestine operatives, and shadowy cabals appear; all effectively contribute to a rich, engaging thriller about a global conspiracy among the world’s elite. Although the story is unmistakably Kate’s, the book jumps around quite a bit to offer the perspectives of other major players, especially early on. Still, Maloof has excellent pacing and knows just when to build suspense and when to send readers careening through moments of urgency. The sheer scale of the work occasionally threatens to become overwhelming, but strong characterization keeps things grounded. In particular, Kate emerges as a compelling and believable protagonist—both in her role as international operative and as a grieving, relatable human being who’s trying to hold on to personal connections as she recovers from trauma.
A rare thriller that successfully combines quiet character work with timely, global intrigue.Pub Date: April 9, 2026
ISBN: 9798989365999
Page Count: 474
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Nail-biting and pressure-packed.
Jack Ryan Jr. and company race to stop a killer wave in this Tom Clancy thriller.
The ship Meridian Star departs eastern Russia unknowingly carrying a pair of containers with radioactive cesium chloride. The vessel is hijacked and scuttled in Micronesia near the Mariana Trench, and the crew is murdered. A huge insurance claim results, and Jack, an accomplished deep-sea diver who works for Hendley Associates, is there to investigate. The hostile Chinese learn it’s there and want that illicit cargo. Meanwhile, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center discovers a huge, mysterious object in 600 feet of water. At that depth, the pressure is unsurvivable without complex special equipment, which is vintage Tom Clancy. Whatever the strange object is, it’s “not a ship…not a submarine…not an aircraft.” On the side is a faded hammer and sickle and Cyrillic letters that spell Siren. Ryan teams up with Navy divers, and they look for a way to safely enter and explore the object. They discover that the underwater contraption has thermonuclear warheads attached, left and long forgotten by the USSR. If the warheads explode, they could still achieve their apparent purpose—to trigger a tsunami and destroy Guam, which is strategically important to the U.S. The Chinese know it too, and the race is on to take control. The result is plenty of high-stakes undersea action, where death can come from a bullet, a knife, or a sliced air hose. But there’s action on land, too. Navy master diver Carla Bennett and Jack take on a surprise assault in a hotel where Carla shows off stellar fighting skills—better than Jack’s. These two aren’t the only heroes here, as there’s a well-balanced cast of characters, all brave and likable. And of course—of course—where there’s a bomb, there’s a ticking clock.
Nail-biting and pressure-packed.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9798217183166
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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