A breathless exploration of the paranoid mindset.
A trio of hypervigilant yet clueless conspiracy theorists accidentally find themselves at the center of a hostage situation in a New York school.
While you sleep, the Watchers tirelessly monitor online communications to reveal the shameful secrets kept by agents of the Circle, whose ranks evidently include politicians, the police, and countless other authority figures. On the basis of an overreading of a routine political announcement that would be ludicrous if it weren’t so plausible and unnerving, three Watchers code-named Red Queen, Caterpillar, and Hatter convince themselves that Christopher Columbus High School is running a “child-sex-slave-ring” and, meeting for the first time in person, show up at the school demanding to see the security recordings that would presumably show Circle slavers bundling innocent teens into anonymous vehicles and spiriting them away. When they meet with understandable resistance, the conflict rapidly escalates, and the three Watchers end up taking the school principal, his secretary, a chemistry teacher, and two students hostage as the school is surrounded by New York’s finest. Apart from the absurdity of the premise, this would all be routine if the NYPD’s hostage negotiator weren’t Lt. Abby Mullen and one of the hostages weren’t her daughter, Samantha, who’s just learned in A Deadly Influence (2021) that Abby herself was one of the few survivors of the Wilcox Cult Massacre more than 30 years ago. Once the unsettling premise has been set up, the skillfully extended standoff becomes altogether less original, though the wily, resourceful Omer keeps it all suspenseful and tosses in a few welcome surprises.
A breathless exploration of the paranoid mindset.Pub Date: March 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-3252-0
Page Count: 396
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.
Evildoers plan attacks from America to India, and Jack Ryan Jr. is a prime target.
In Washington state, a man and his family are murdered, and President Jack Ryan learns it is another Poseidon Spear incident. Three retired members of that counterterrorism group have been killed now, and the U.S. government suspects a mole in its midst. Meanwhile, the Umayyad Revolutionary Council believes it has a holy and wholly anti-American mission. Against this backdrop, Jack Ryan Jr., and his fiancée, Lisanne Robertson, visit Delhi, India, to attend the wedding of Srini Rai, the brilliant surgeon who attached Lisanne’s prosthetic left arm. Lisanne had lost her arm in Tom Clancy Shadow of the Dragon (2020). Jack and Lisanne are both operators working for the Campus, a covert group that executes secret presidential directives. A wedding is a happy occasion, and the engaged American couple intend the trip as a vacation. Jack and Lisanne will attend a sangeet, an elaborate pre-wedding party. But it isn’t long before they survive a suicide bomb attack. As with all Clancy novels, there’s plenty of action on a global scale. In simultaneous strikes, terrorists plan to contaminate America’s Western water supply with radioactive waste from Washington’s Hanford nuclear power plant, blow up a spectacular new bridge in Kashmir, and kill the evil Ryan—or Junior, at least. It will be At-Takwir, the end of days. There is an appealing mix of Indian culture, high-speed action, and the rich lode of details that characterizes the whole series. And in the background lingers the question on several characters’ minds: Have Jack and Lisanne set their own wedding date?
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780593718032
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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