Another well-crafted and enjoyable escape from reality. The Ryans just keep on saving the world.
The latest in the action-filled series of thrillers based on characters created by the late Tom Clancy (Oath of Office, 2018, etc.) and continued here by Maden.
Malign forces are trying to steal America’s vital secrets, which it keeps in the highly secure IC Cloud. Naturally, a security breach would be catastrophic. China is the biggest cybersecurity threat by far, and it may have American allies. Sen. Deborah Dixon, who wants President Jack Ryan’s job, says in a speech that “the future belongs to America and China,” and a Ryan aide speculates that she may be in league with the Chinese. Meanwhile, Jack Ryan Jr. is a financial analyst at Hendley Associates who is sent to Poland to see if there is a connection between China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Poland. In Warsaw, he is assigned a Polish assistant, Agent Liliana Pilecki. She’s good-looking, of course, and exceptionally brave. There’s an unrequited sexual tension between them that reflects especially well on Jack Jr. as a heck of a decent guy. Early on, his cancer-stricken friend, Cory, makes a deathbed request that Jack feels honor-bound to keep. “A man keeps his word,” he thinks, and he goes to heroic lengths to do so. Jack Ryan Jr. is definitely someone you want on your side, and not because he’s the president’s son. He is the quintessential good guy—tough, smart, honorable, unafraid. Handcuffed with his hands behind his back atop a Peruvian mountain and saying he needs to pee, he asks a captor for help. “If you’re nice, you can hold it for me,” he wisecracks. “Of course, you’ll have to use both hands.” Now that’s a red-blooded American. Author Maden’s style meshes perfectly with the classic Clancy yarns, with global action, struggle, suffering, and formidable foes who get what they deserve.
Another well-crafted and enjoyable escape from reality. The Ryans just keep on saving the world.Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-54169-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Yes, it’s formula. Yes, it’s not as gritty an exercise in swamp mayhem as Hiaasen, Buchanan, or Crews might turn in. But,...
“I started dreaming of getting rich, which, in Florida anyway, can lead to serious trouble”: another blockbuster in the making from Grisham (Rogue Lawyer, 2015, etc.), the ascended master of the legal procedural.
If justice is blind, it is also served, in theory, by incorruptible servants. Emphasize “in theory,” for as Grisham’s latest opens, judicial investigator Lacy Stoltz is confronted with the unpleasant possibility that a highly regarded judge may be on the take. The charge comes, discreetly, from a former lawyer–turned-jailbird-turned-lawyer again, who spins out a seemingly improbable tale of racketeering that weds the best elements of Gulf Coast society with the worst, from the brilliant legal minds of Tallahassee to some very unpleasant lads once styled as the Catfish Mafia, now reborn in an alt-version, the Coast Mafia. Lacy’s brief is to find out just how rotten the rotten judge is—and the answer is plenty. Naturally, this knowledge is not acquired without cost; the body count rises, bad things happen to good people, and for a time, at least, the villains get away with murder and more. Grisham has never been strong on characterization: Lacy, we learn, is content to be single, “to live alone, to sleep in the center of the bed, to clean up only after herself,” and so forth, but beyond that the reader doesn’t get much sense of what drives her to put herself in the way of flying bullets and sneering counsel: “His associate was Ian Archer, an unsmiling sort who refused to shake hands with anyone and reeked of surliness.” In laid-back Florida? Indeed, and in Grisham’s busy hands, a lot of players come and go, some fated to sleep with the manatees.
Yes, it’s formula. Yes, it’s not as gritty an exercise in swamp mayhem as Hiaasen, Buchanan, or Crews might turn in. But, like eating a junk burger, even though you probably shouldn’t, it’s plenty satisfying.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-385-54119-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As the plot grows more complicated, it also sheds believability, leaving sex and witty banter to carry the day.
Brown (Mean Streak, 2014, etc.) ticks off the boxes that elevate her books to the bestseller lists in this sexy romantic thriller set in Texas.
Rock-jawed hero with a dark past: check. Strong-willed, beautiful woman who resists his charms: check. A Whitman’s Sampler of bad guys: check. And finally, a convoluted and not always plausible plot: check. In this latest outing, readers meet TV journalist Kerra Bailey, whose family was torn apart years ago by a hotel bombing that killed 197 people in Dallas. Just in time for the 25th anniversary, Kerra scores an interview with the notoriously private Maj. Trapper, who saved her life, among others, when he emerged from the blast to lead the survivors out of danger. There's an iconic, prizewinning photo of the major carrying a little girl from the wreckage, but the child has never been identified—until now, when Kerra goes public with the information that it was her. Just after they finish filming the interview in his home, the major is shot, and an injured Kerra escapes in the confusion. The major’s son, disgraced Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent John Trapper—a name M*A*S*H fans will appreciate—steps in, igniting a chain of events that leads to murder, intrigue, betrayal, and a series of dark revelations. As with most of Brown’s heroes and heroines, there’s palpable sexual tension between Trapper, whose taut rear occupies ample literary real estate, and Kerra, who when dealing with Trapper feels “like he’d lightly scratched her just below her bellybutton” when he’s not making her “pleasure points throb.” The complex plot plays out in a round of reveals that don’t always make a lot of sense, but that’s not why Brown’s fans read her books. They check in for the witty, pitch-perfect dialogue and fluid writing. A master of her genre, Brown knows how to please her most ardent readers but relies too often on the same basic formula from novel to novel.
As the plot grows more complicated, it also sheds believability, leaving sex and witty banter to carry the day.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4555-7210-6
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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