An engaging romantic mystery.
A man with partial memory loss joins the Drug Enforcement Administration in taking down narcos while searching for the mysterious woman he loves in this debut thriller.
New Yorker Juan Del Valle has a potential investor for his sports-related “business idea.” Before he has a chance to present his concept, Juan meets a beautiful woman at a New Jersey mall. Though his dalliances have earned him the nickname Don Juan, he’s smitten with her on an emotional level. Revisiting the mall until finally seeing her again, he learns her name is Angie Hope. She’s married to a cheating, abusive husband who threatens to take away their son if she ever leaves him. Juan and Angie grow close but initially maintain a physical distance, communicating via text. But soon they both want more than the poetry Juan sends her. Unfortunately, Juan’s possible investor, Don Emilio Ramirez, is under DEA investigation. Juan’s eventual meeting with him goes unexpectedly sour, leaving the protagonist hurt and in a two-month coma. Upon awakening, Juan can’t recall the details leading up to his injury. DEA Special Agent Jessie Pichardo, who has investigated Ramirez, recruits Juan, a former Marine, to convince women to turn against their narco husbands or boyfriends. This, of course, requires going undercover for the purpose of seduction, which Juan is familiar with. But after perusing his text messages, he realizes Angie is the love of his life. Since she’s likely tied to a noted cartel member, other cartels may have targeted her. Juan hopes to track down Angie while Jessie suspects someone has “compromised” the DEA.
In this series opener, Geronimo establishes an appealing romance between Juan and Angie. There’s minimal information regarding the abuse she suffers—narrator Juan implies he’s intentionally avoiding the subject—but the couple’s mutual attraction is convincing. Much of their story entails Juan’s poems, both in the narrative and in texts to Angie. While the poetry is sometimes clichéd and repetitive, it’s more often indelible: “I don’t even need to touch you to swerve you into my light.” Juan is a winning protagonist. He has understandable contempt for Angie’s husband, whom he doesn’t know, but Juan acknowledges that his own prior treatment of women was insensitive. Things get more intense as Juan and Angie move toward a physical connection. Not only is Juan anxious over the probability of sex with Angie, but he becomes paranoid as well, sure that her rich husband has someone spying on him. The book’s final third becomes a full-scale thriller. Juan is on a mission and running out of time, and he enlists the help of Matthew, a fellow soldier and cybersecurity specialist who offers his hacking skills to the DEA. Sadly, the story practically sprints to the end, quickly pushing past the operation and summarizing a violent turn with surprising ease. This could be an avenue to explore in the sequel. Geronimo’s digital illustrations add color to the pages as well as mystery, occasionally involving individuals or scenes that readers won’t immediately recognize. A few of these remain unknown by the ending, which teases the second installment.
An engaging romantic mystery. (dedications, acknowledgements, author bio)Pub Date: July 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-09-830465-2
Page Count: 162
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Gritty little gems.
A collection of six short stories about crimes both planned and accidental, the collision of dreams and reality, and the things people do for love.
John Highland, for example, faces a lifetime in prison. But if he can do one “Final Score” before turning himself in, at least he can set up his beloved wife for the rest of her days. His plan is impossible to pull off, which is even more reason to do it—a brilliant finale to his criminal career. Another tale takes the reader to Rhode Island, where liquor sales are banned on Sundays. One liquor store maintains a secret “Sunday List” of thirsty patrons and their liquid requirements to get them through the Lord’s Day. Some stories are more serious—a drunk kid kills a young woman in a DUI and is headed to prison. But the kid’s cousin, a cop, worries he may not survive long in the general population. If only the kid could get assigned to the “North Wing,” where a mob boss prisoner protects its inmates. “True Story” is sharp, funny, and one hundred percent dialogue. Guys swap wacky crime stories in a diner. A sample: “Listen—Angela, for all her fine qualities, was no Rose Scholar, either.” But then in “The Lunch Break,” Dave is hired to watch over the spoiled actress Brittany McVeigh and make sure she shows up on set sober and on time. She is only 5-foot-3, but “bad things come in small packages” and she’s a “drunken, drug-addled, promiscuous little diva” who claims she’s being stalked. In the final tale, “Collision,” life is darn near perfect for an upwardly mobile white family of three. Brad McAlister is a highly talented hotel manager. Upper management invites him and his wife to a fancy restaurant and offers him his dream promotion. But in a squeal of tires in the parking lot, their lives change forever. Will the McAlisters’ deep love for each other survive? Each of these stories has clever plotting and sharp dialogue, a hallmark of all the author’s work. Winslow had previously announced his retirement, but maybe that collided with his love of writing.
Gritty little gems.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9780063450424
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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