Above-average middle doesn’t quite compensate for a slow start and painfully bloated conclusion.
Egyptologists, gangsters and spies race across the desert in search of an ancient oasis and the treasure concealed therein.
Professional rock climber Freya and her sister Alex, an explorer working in Egypt, hadn’t spoken in a long time, though they were extremely close as children. So when Freya gets a call informing her that Alex has died due to an injection of morphine, allegedly self-administered despite the explorer’s lifelong terror of needles, she sets out on an emotionally trying trip to attend the funeral. While Freya is staying at her sister’s house, a mysterious Bedouin emerges from the desert with a backpack he asks her to give to Alex, not knowing that she is dead. Soon thereafter, Freya returns to the house to find it being ransacked by vicious thugs; when they discover her lurking outside, a chase ensues. Fearing for her life, Freya flees to Cairo and the protection of Dr. Flin Brodie, an Egyptologist friend of Alex whom she met at the funeral. Flin and Freya almost immediately find themselves pursued by a local crime lord and a shady CIA operative with unknown motives as they rush to find an ancient desert oasis that seems somehow connected with Alex's death. Sussman (The Last Secret of the Temple, 2007, etc.), himself a sometime field archaeologist, gets off to a slow start but eventually settles into a tense groove, occasionally leavened by flashes of classic screwball humor. Although the British author gets some details wrong (Yanks hardly ever say “bloody” or “arse” and always know what a Hardees is), for the most part his American characters feel real. But the narrative too often bogs down in an excess of detail, and in the novel’s final quarter twist after unwelcome twist slows the pace to a painful crawl.
Above-average middle doesn’t quite compensate for a slow start and painfully bloated conclusion.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8021-1918-6
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A murder is committed in a stalled transcontinental train in the Balkans, and every passenger has a watertight alibi. But Hercule Poirot finds a way.
**Note: This classic Agatha Christie mystery was originally published in England as Murder on the Orient Express, but in the United States as Murder in the Calais Coach. Kirkus reviewed the book in 1934 under the original US title, but we changed the title in our database to the now recognizable title Murder on the Orient Express. This is the only name now known for the book. The reason the US publisher, Dodd Mead, did not use the UK title in 1934 was to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel, Orient Express.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1934
ISBN: 978-0062073495
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1934
As usual, Coben piles on the plot twists, false leads, violent set pieces and climactic surprises with the unfocused...
After six years of spinning jaw-dropping stand-alone thrillers, Coben brings back his sports agent—make that everything agent—Myron Bolitar (Darkest Fear, 2000, etc.) for an encore.
Overhearing high-school senior Erin Wilder, his current ladylove’s daughter, sharing confidences with her friend Aimee Biel about getting driven by wasted friends, Myron Bolitar promises both girls that if they ever need a ride, they can call him and he’ll pick them up, no questions asked. All too soon he gets a chance to deliver. Aimee phones him from midtown Manhattan, where he just happens to be staying, and asks him to drive her to suburban New Jersey. Myron obliges but pushes a bit too hard with the questions, and Aimee vanishes into a strange house. The next day she’s still missing, and in jig time the police, armed with Myron’s credit-card slips and EZ-Pass records, come calling. It turns out that Myron’s not a credible suspect. But because everybody connects Aimee’s disappearance to that of fellow student Katie Rochester three months ago, Myron’s on the hook with some serious people, from Aimee’s parents, who beg him to bring her home, to Katie’s mobbed-up dad, who’s too proud to beg but has other ways of getting him to cooperate.
As usual, Coben piles on the plot twists, false leads, violent set pieces and climactic surprises with the unfocused intensity that have made his thrillers (The Innocent, 2005, etc.) such a hot ticket.Pub Date: April 25, 2006
ISBN: 0-525-94949-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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