A bracing tale with a gutsy hero for fans of secret agent thrillers.
A covert agent races to locate stolen Russian uranium that officials fear will be used in an imminent terrorist attack in this novel.
When a Soviet-era nuclear repository is breached and 100 pounds of uranium stolen, the president of the United States calls for “the best field person we’ve got” to identify who is mobilizing for a terrorist attack. That’s Kori Briggs, an agent of the supersecret Rampart, “the most elite intelligence agency in the world,” which operates without red tape. The immediate suspect is Alfawda, “terrorist bastards” who are said to make al-Qaida and the Islamic State group look like Boy Scouts. Adding to the situation’s urgency is the unknown whereabouts of Ivan Yanovich, who until recently was with the Moscow-based Ministry of Atomic Energy but who apparently went “bonkers” after nepotism cost him an executive position with the agency and his cheating wife left him. Briggs’ mission gets off to a rocky start when a double agent providing the CIA with information about Alfawda is murdered, but she teams up with a Russian fellow “femme badass,” and they uncover an infinitely more frightening plot and more terrifying villain. That villain was presumed dead but is very much alive and is a psychotic, narcissistic, and sadistic piece of work, literally the stuff of nightmares. And he knows all about Rampart, his No. 1 enemy, and its agents. Rawls’ thriller begins with “unsettling news” and rarely flags. Briggs is a capable hero who is not unnecessarily complicated by a formulaic, psyche-scarred backstory or romantic entanglements (one lover is summarily dismissed early on). She’s got intuition, grit, and gumption; the confidence invested in her is justified. She may be the only agent in fiction who employs Cripes as an oath. The book is well paced and the villain effectively kept offstage, so when he does make an appearance, readers know full well what he is capable of. The climax falls into the talking-killer trope, but that adds to the old-school fun.
A bracing tale with a gutsy hero for fans of secret agent thrillers.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Upper West Side Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2026 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.
