Lifting a white paper right off a think-tank desk, the authors have applied a bit of imagination and come up with an...
With the conspiracy meter cranked to the max, North and Hamer (American Heroes, 2013, etc.) embroil Jake Kruse, Marine-turned–FBI agent, in the investigation of an unholy alliance between North Korea and Iran.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea—the paranoid Kim dynasty—earns $1 billion a year by smuggling knockoff Rolexes, counterfeit name-brand cigarettes and fake trademarked pharmaceuticals into the United States. After establishing his bona fides in Los Angeles’ Korean gangland, Jake works undercover to stop the deluge of illicit merchandise, an enterprise uneasily controlled by rivals Mssrs. Yeong and Park, both assumed to be North Korean agents. While he’s gathering evidence, Jake is offered a fee to whack Park’s daughter, half the money paid in advance. The bills turn out to be "Supernotes," counterfeit bills so perfect as to be nearly undetectable. Now Jake’s involved in strategic-level spy games, with the North Koreans intending to flood the U.S. with Supernotes to help finance a nuclear weapons project contracted by Iran’s ayatollahs. The fast-moving plot will come off as realistic to anyone following geopolitics; however, Jake’s an action hero taken straight from Column A of the hero menu: a tough guy barely constrained by bureaucratic technicalities, always ready to pull the trigger in spite of a supervisor’s qualms. The remainder of the cast—Koreans, good and bad; other wannabe gangsters; and a sleeper cell of Islamic terrorists—are plugged in when the narrative needs a boost. The writing ranges from the prosaic toward the occasionally bombastic—"the ever-defiant undercover agent, showing no fear." Hoary clichés abound, but the authors bring realism to all things martial, including well-choreographed fight scenes. While there are occasional allusions to "political indigestion" and recent Obama missteps like "Fast and Furious, the IRS Enemies List, and Benghazi," this effort is less Fox-filtered than North’s previous novels.
Lifting a white paper right off a think-tank desk, the authors have applied a bit of imagination and come up with an acceptable action-adventure.Pub Date: June 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1435-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Threshold Editions/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.
Coulter’s treasured FBI agents take on two cases marked by danger and personal involvement.
Dillon Savitch and his wife, Lacey Sherlock, have special abilities that have served them well in law enforcement (Paradox, 2018, etc.). But that doesn't prevent Sherlock’s car from hitting a running man after having been struck by a speeding SUV that runs a red light. The runner, though clearly injured, continues on his way and disappears. Not so the SUV driver, a security engineer for the Bexholt Group, which has ties to government agencies. Sherlock’s own concussion causes memory loss so severe that she doesn’t recognize Savitch or remember their son, Sean. The whole incident seems more suspicious when a blood test from the splatter of the man Sherlock hit reveals that he’s Justice Cummings, an analyst for the CIA. The agency’s refusal to cooperate makes Savitch certain that Bexholt is involved in a deep-laid plot. Meanwhile, Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith is visiting friends who run a cafe in the touristy Virginia town of Gaffers Ridge. Hammersmith, who has psychic abilities, is taken aback when he hears in his mind a woman’s cry for help. Reporter Carson DeSilva, who came to the area to interview a Nobel Prize winner, also has psychic abilities, and she overhears the thoughts of Rafer Bodine, a young man who has apparently kidnapped and possibly murdered three teenage girls. Unluckily, she blurts out her thoughts, and she’s snatched and tied up in a cellar by Bodine. Bodine may be a killer, but he’s also the nephew of the sheriff and the son of the local bigwig. So the sheriff arrests Hammersmith and refuses to accept his FBI credentials. Bodine's mother has psychic powers strong enough to kill, but she meets her match in Hammersmith, DeSilva, Savitch, and Sherlock.
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9365-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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
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