Action-loving readers will be thrilled with this one. Laukkanen is a damn fine storyteller.
The author of the Stevens and Windermere novels (The Forgotten Girls, 2017, etc.) taps into his nautical knowledge for this rousing seafaring yarn.
In Yokohama, Tomio Ishimaru sneaks onto the cargo ship Pacific Lion with a silver briefcase containing $50 million worth of bearer bonds he’s stealing from the yakuza crime syndicate. On its way to the United States, the ship changes out its seawater ballast incorrectly and begins to list to one side. Soon it founders and might even sink. Everyone except the stowaway abandons ship and its cargo of 5,000 Nissans 200 miles off the coast of Alaska. The ship desperately needs a tow, so several salvage tugs race to the scene, including Gale Force. McKenna Rhodes inherited the tug from her father after he was killed in an accident at sea. Now she and her crew head out to right the crippled ship and tow it to safety, her first salvage job on her own. The stakes are high—the Pacific Lion’s owner agrees to pay Rhodes $30 million if they haul it safely into port, “but the crew wouldn’t be paid one salty dime if they couldn’t save the ship.” It’s an unusual story premise, and a good one—quick, name the last tugboat thriller you’ve read. The crew respects Rhodes as “a damn fine salvage captain” in an overwhelmingly male profession. Smart, brave, and worried, she knows how to command her crew and guide the tug through towering crests and swells. In the midst of all this, the crew must board the damaged ship and pump water back in to right it before beginning to tow. The beleaguered vessel may well take some Gale Force crew to the bottom of the sea. Belowdecks, Ishimaru hides with a treasure and a pistol, setting up an inevitable confrontation. Someone will get rich, and someone will die.
Action-loving readers will be thrilled with this one. Laukkanen is a damn fine storyteller.Pub Date: May 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1263-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
Kubica is a helluva storyteller, and while this doesn't quite equal her best efforts, it’s still pretty darn good.
When Jessie Sloane's mother, Eden, dies of cancer, Jessie is left rudderless. Then she discovers she might not be the person she thought she was.
Jessie never knew her father, and she can’t bear to live in the house that she shared with Eden, so she puts it on the market. When she applies to community college, she gets a call with the alarming news that a death certificate was filed 17 years ago with her name and social security number on it. She'll need to get a copy of her social security card, but without a birth certificate or driver’s license—she doesn’t drive—it’s nearly impossible, and when a clerk takes pity on her and does a search, no records are found. It’s a vicious circle, and it hampers her ability to find an apartment, although she does eventually find a place in a small carriage house she rents from reclusive widow Ms. Geissler. Unfortunately, in addition to the question of her identity, she’s got a more pressing problem: Jessie has insomnia, and as the days pass and she doesn’t sleep, she begins to hear and see things, eventually wondering how long she can go without sleep before it kills her. Woven with Jessie’s first-person narrative is Eden’s tale, beginning 20 years ago in 1996 when she’s only 28. She and her husband, Aaron, are crazy in love and desperately hope for a child, but as time passes and they don’t conceive, they begin trying more aggressive, and more expensive, methods. Eden’s obsession builds to a fever pitch, threatening to tear her and Aaron apart. Jessie’s story, an effective study of grief, nightmarishly builds to its own fever pitch, and Kubica peppers her narrative with creepy, surreal touches that will have readers questioning reality right along with Jessie. Eden’s story, on the other hand, poignantly examines what it’s like to want a child so badly that you’ll do anything to have one. Can Jessie find out who she really is before it’s too late? It all leads to a denouement that isn't very surprising, but a lesser writer might not have been able to pull off the final twist.
Kubica is a helluva storyteller, and while this doesn't quite equal her best efforts, it’s still pretty darn good.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7783-3078-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Park Row Books
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
Another success for the publishing phenom.
An abused boy fights back, escapes, then returns as an attorney to his beloved hometown, but just as he’s falling in love with a transplanted landscaper, a series of attacks from shadowy enemies jeopardizes their happiness.
“From the outside, the house in Lakeview Terrace looked perfect.” Which of course means that it wasn't. We're introduced to the horrifying Dr. Graham Bigelow, who beats his wife and, increasingly as the boy gets older, his son, Zane. On the night of Zane’s prom, a particularly savage attack puts him and his sister in the hospital, and his father blames Zane, landing him in jail. Then his sister stands up for him, enlisting the aid of their aunt, and everything changes, mainly due to Zane’s secret diaries. Nearly 20 years later, Zane leaves a successful career as a lawyer to return to Lakeview, where his aunt and sister live with their families, deciding to hang a shingle as a small-town lawyer. Then he meets Darby McCray, the landscaper who’s recently relocated and taken the town by storm, starting with the transformation of his family’s rental bungalows. The two are instantly intrigued by each other, but they move slowly into a relationship neither is looking for. Darby has a violent past of her own, so she is more than willing to take on the risk of antagonizing a boorish local family when she and Zane help an abused wife. Suddenly Zane and Darby face one attack after another, and even as they grow ever closer under the pressure, the dangers become more insidious. Roberts’ latest title feels a little long and the story is slightly cumbersome, but her greatest strength is in making the reader feel connected to her characters, so “unnecessary details” can also charm and engage.
Another success for the publishing phenom.Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-20709-8
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
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