A flashy hybrid of thriller genres with a dazzling hero and an overstuffed plot that derails momentum.
This third installment of Eckles’ thriller series offers a glossy mix of high finance, jet-setting glamour, and clandestine operations.
The story opens with the shocking discovery of the FBI director’s dead body in Washington, D.C.’s Riggs Hotel and the haunting image of a bloody woman fleeing into the alley. Mere hours earlier, Celeste Donovan, a billionaire financier turned reluctant operative, was already on the run, her carefully laid plans unraveling. The narrative moves further back in time, picking up where the second Celeste adventure left off, with Celeste grieving her brother and trying to build a life with her loving new husband, Theodore. But shadowy figures, like her mysterious ally Michel Lemoine, keep hinting at more trouble and secrets. From a shadowy collective of FBI and CIA agents called the Illuminati, Celeste learns of a potentially devastating cyberattack that might be connected with security breaches at her hedge fund. Against a backdrop of corporate boardrooms, luxury hotels, and private jets, Celeste struggles to untangle a web of money and lies that may all lead back to her villainous ex, Omar—or perhaps even someone still close to her (“The fact remained—someone was compromised. Perhaps several in her circle…”) Eckles’ premise—a fabulously wealthy woman spends her free time donning disguises and unraveling international terrorist schemes—is a fascinating one, and fans of the previous installment will be happy to have more of the same. But this third outing is quickly weighed down by the baggage Celeste’s convoluted story has accumulated. Exposition is woven so thickly into the action that shootouts get interrupted with heavy-handed asides meant to remind readers of exactly who is who in relation to Celeste. While her luxurious world is a fun one to explore (filled with every fancy brand name and high-end restaurant imaginable), the dense narrative is in too much of a hurry to let Celeste or readers catch their breath.
A flashy hybrid of thriller genres with a dazzling hero and an overstuffed plot that derails momentum.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9798999064707
Page Count: 404
Publisher: Aphrodite Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 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.
