An adventure-filled thriller, brimming with vibrant historical and geographical details, with a disappointing resolution.
A debut novel focuses on a soldier in Iraq who discovers a mysterious relic.
Will Eastgate is a special ops soldier helping to recover lost treasures in Iraq during Operation Enduring Freedom. When he unearths a strange tablet, he finds himself in the middle of an ancient religious struggle, running for his life and trying to figure out the motives of those chasing him. That leads him to Olivia Nazarian, an Assyriologist at Cambridge University, famous for writing a book that may have uncovered the location of the Garden of Eden. Eastgate enlists her help in unlocking the tablet’s secrets only to find that Samir Zana, one of her students, is part of the Flaming Sword, an organization whose centuries-old mission is to protect the site of Eden to prevent humans from defying God by reentering the Garden. Swain has populated this thriller with a host of intriguing supporting characters, including Olivia’s father, Dashni, the British foreign secretary; Pearl, a high-level freelance hacker and an old college fraternity mate of Eastgate’s; and Reso Zana, Samir’s controlling father and another member of the Flaming Sword. The author keeps the action exciting and the story moving swiftly as Eastgate and Olivia traverse England and the Middle East. Swain describes each location in vivid detail, as when he writes about the snowmelt from the mountains running through the streets of Tehran. Similarly, the author’s research into religion and politics helps bring the tale to life. It’s not until the very end that the enjoyable story starts to fall apart. After maintaining an impressive pace throughout, with the exception of an occasional unnecessary infodump meant to mark the year something is happening, the novel delivers a multitude of plot twists at the end that feel forced. They too conveniently contradict the elements that made the tale captivating in the first place.
An adventure-filled thriller, brimming with vibrant historical and geographical details, with a disappointing resolution.Pub Date: May 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-64694-7
Page Count: 425
Publisher: Aberglassney & Shaw
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.
A series of mounting complications leads to yet another fight to the death between the discarded intelligence agents of Slough House and the morally bankrupt head of MI5.
As Jackson Lamb’s motley crew on Aldersgate Street struggles to cope with the deaths of River Cartwright’s grandfather and mentor, intelligence veteran David Cartwright, and their dim, beloved colleague Min Harper, new troubles are brewing. Diana Taverner, who runs the British Intelligence Service from Regent’s Park, is being blackmailed by former MP Peter Judd to do his bidding. Nothing untoward about that, of course, but this time, Judd’s demands, backed by a compromising tape recording, are more pressing than usual. So Diana reconvenes the Brains Trust—Al Hawke, Avril Potts, Daisy Wessex, and their ex-boss Charles Cornell Stamoran—whose last assignment was to serve as the contact for psychopathic IRA informant Dougie Malone while turning a blind eye to his multiple rapes and murders, which were really none of the Crown’s business. Taverner’s new assignment for the Brains Trust is the assassination of Judd. Since all these developments are filtered through the riotously cynical lens of Herron’s imagination, nothing goes as planned, and when the smoke clears, the fatalities don’t include Judd. Now that Judd knows he has as much reason to fear Taverner as she does to fear him, Lamb offers to broker a peace meeting between them which Slough House computer geek Roddy Ho will keep secret by knocking out 37 security cameras around Taverner’s dwelling. What could possibly go wrong?
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781641297264
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
