A potent, well-crafted thriller that’s a page-turner of the highest order.
This novel focuses on the weaponization of money—and how one murder can destabilize financial markets around the globe and potentially change the balance of power in the world.
When a deputy chief of the Russian Central Bank is murdered, Nick Burns, a researcher for a Boston-based hedge fund and a former Army translator, is tasked by the Boss to investigate. The Boss, the founder of the hedge fund and “worth more money than God,” is convinced that America’s financial system is about to implode. He wants Burns to confirm that there are connections between the murder and a veritable “Rubik’s Cube” of seemingly unrelated events, including Russian money laundering in South America through drug trafficking and a Russian state-owned bank involved in a massive bitcoin/dollar exchange with China’s Ministry of State Security. As Burns travels the globe attempting to understand the complicated political dynamics that could tie all these events together, he has to deal with his dying mother back in Boston as well as a newfound love interest in Li You, aka Lola, a Chinese-born researcher working in Hong Kong. Featuring an impressively large and diverse cast of characters (included in a four-page glossary), Podolsky’s well-written novel isn’t just the deep exploration of the complex connection between political influence and the manipulation of currency. Instead, the tale’s power lies in the way in which the author makes this a character-driven narrative (an element lacking in many thrillers). Burns is three-dimensional, authentic, and identifiable. He loves his mother, risks his life for Lola, and—as an aspiring painter—sees the world through a vivid dichotomy. Humans are potential murderers as well as a “reflection of God’s beauty.” That said, the story—perfectly positioned for a sequel—delivers everything thriller fans expect: pedal-to-the-metal pacing, a complicated mystery, nonstop action and intrigue, and more than a few bombshell plot twists.
A potent, well-crafted thriller that’s a page-turner of the highest order.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0998667355
Page Count: 446
Publisher: Still Press LLC
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Loyal King stans may disagree, but this is a snooze.
A much-beloved author gives a favorite recurring character her own novel.
Holly Gibney made her first appearance in print with a small role in Mr. Mercedes (2014). She played a larger role in The Outsider (2018). And she was the central character in If It Bleeds, a novella in the 2020 collection of the same name. King has said that the character “stole his heart.” Readers adore her, too. One way to look at this book is as several hundred pages of fan service. King offers a lot of callbacks to these earlier works that are undoubtedly a treat for his most loyal devotees. That these easter eggs are meaningless and even befuddling to new readers might make sense in terms of costs and benefits. King isn’t exactly an author desperate to grow his audience; pleasing the people who keep him at the top of the bestseller lists is probably a smart strategy, and this writer achieved the kind of status that whatever he writes is going to be published. Having said all that, it’s possible that even his hardcore fans might find this story a bit slow. There are also issues in terms of style. Much of the language King uses and the cultural references he drops feel a bit creaky. The word slacks occurs with distracting frequency. King uses the phrase keeping it on the down-low in a way that suggests he probably doesn’t understand how this phrase is currently used—and has been used for quite a while. But the biggest problem is that this narrative is framed as a mystery without delivering the pleasures of a mystery. The reader knows who the bad guys are from the start. This can be an effective storytelling device, but in this case, waiting for the private investigator heroine to get to where the reader is at the beginning of the story feels interminable.
Loyal King stans may disagree, but this is a snooze.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781668016138
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
Lots of violent action with little payoff.
Jack Ryan Jr. is back to risk life and limb in saving a teenage girl from international killers while his father, U.S. President Jack Ryan Sr., figures out what to do with Iran’s clandestine uranium enrichment facility, hidden in a mine.
Junior, head of the secret intelligence outfit The Campus, which was functionally wiped out in Tom Clancy Flash Point (2023), is heading across Texas to a rendezvous with his fiancee, Lisanne Robertson, a one-armed former Marine and cop. He’s waylaid by the aftermath of a multi-vehicle accident that he discovers resulted from a gun attack that left a driver hanging on for life, and now puts Jack in the crosshairs of the gunmen. A tip leads him to a 4 a.m. meeting with Amanda, a single mom whose impetuous daughter, Bella, has run off with her highly undesirable boyfriend only to be abducted by the baddies. Meanwhile...in the nation’s capital, American surveillance has determined that Iran is on the cusp of nuclear armament. The only way to stop them is unleashing an unpiloted and untested super plane with massive destructive power. The book’s treatment of Iran’s “existential threat to the entire globe” as a subplot is rather curious, to say the least. You keep waiting for Bentley to connect the two stories, but that happens only superficially. Late in the book, we are told as an afterthought that Iran’s immediate threat had been “mitigated.” Unfortunately, there is no mitigation of the novel’s hackneyed prose—"The analytical portion of Jack’s brain couldn’t help but be impressed.”
Lots of violent action with little payoff.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780593422816
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2023 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.
bookshelf
