Though a novel without much of a moral compass, it leaves an imprint with its lively cast of characters, pungent locale and...
In this caustic, action-filled thriller, an American computer-coding whiz hiding out in sweltering Phnom Penh makes the mistake of trading identities with a high-powered businessman who looks exactly like him.
Congress wants Kyle West for contempt for skipping out on charges relating to his work for a billionaire government contractor under indictment. Reputed to be the man who first made cellphones ignite improvised explosive devices, West is talked into temporarily trading passports with the shady Julian Robinson, who claims to work for a German telecom company. Robinson convinces his doppelganger that he needs the false ID to conduct business in Africa anonymously. West, who suffers from bad anxiety, discovers that life can get worse when, mistaken for Robinson, he is abducted by Chinese thugs and assigned a job by Russian supergangster Andrei Protosevitch. And then there's Lara, Robinson's gun-happy, Russian-born girlfriend, who first seduces West and then tries to kill him. The CIA man on the case is Fowler, a Vietnam veteran who, like most of the characters, has one foot in the '60s (West's parents were leftist radicals; the Russians are post-communists) even as the constant presence of CNN anchors everyone in the all-knowing present. Applying postmodern polish to the foreign intrigue of Graham Greene and Eric Ambler, first-time novelist Mennuti and Hollywood screenwriter Guggenheim (Safe House, 2012) don't scrimp on the chase scenes and bloody encounters, one of which leaves West with a knife protruding from his stomach. Beware, too, the army of glue-sniffing monkeys being pursued by the Cambodian cops.
Though a novel without much of a moral compass, it leaves an imprint with its lively cast of characters, pungent locale and dizzy plotting.Pub Date: July 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-316-19995-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
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
A tepid follow-up to The Camel Club (2005), with few surprises.
Helped by a beautiful grifter, the “Camel Club”—the four-man band of conspiracy theorists—returns to battle a threat to national security.
Annabelle Conroy is con-artist extraordinaire; Jerry Bagger, mobster and mark; and Roger Seagraves, master assassin. All come straight from central casting. Seagraves is killing high-level government officials, and Conroy is putting together the con of the century, with Bagger as the target. The mysterious death of a rare-books expert at the Library of Congress launches the story, which splits off at first into two different plotlines. In one, Conroy and her team work their way up to their major score. In the other, the Camel Club investigates the mysterious death of a close friend. Things are slightly more exciting in Conroy’s world. She’s assembling her team, eager to settle an old score by taking down Atlantic City’s most notorious and ruthless casino owner. After a series of capers out west to build their bankroll, the team heads back east. There’s little drama Players act out their part; marks fall. The big score comes off without a hitch. The two plots intersect halfway through. Annabelle arrives in D.C., thanks to an awkward development, along with a new piece of unfinished business. Seagraves and the Camel Club are engaged in a cat-and-mouse game, and Annabelle Conroy is the special guest star. The merged stories reach a predictable conclusion. An obvious conflict remains unresolved for much of the way, setting up the next chapter in the saga.
A tepid follow-up to The Camel Club (2005), with few surprises.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2006
ISBN: 0-446-53109-X
Page Count: 448
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2006
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