A spy novel that has moments of brilliance but inspires incredulity more than excitement.
A Lutheran pastor attempts to expose the persecution of Christians in Iran.
Stephen Grant isn’t your typical Lutheran pastor—he’s also a former Navy SEAL and CIA agent who still accepts clandestine missions for the United States. Grant realizes the absurdity of his life, one which only makes sense in the cinematic world of action adventures: “There aren’t too many of my fellow Lutheran pastors who wind up in the situations that I do.” Sometimes, Grant’s missions come directly from President Adam Links, to whom Grant serves as a kind of spiritual adviser. An organization Grant works with—the Lutheran Response to Christian Persecution—produces a documentary exposing the brutal persecution of Christians by the Iranian government. In order to uncover the prison where Christians are being held and rescue its victims, Grant joins forces with Caldwell, Driessen and McEnany International Strategies and Security, a firm led by Paige Caldwell, a former CIA partner and romantic flame. Paige is now secretly engaged to President Links. In the aftermath of their successful mission, the crew is invited to Jordan to meet with its royal family—the recently crowned King Salama seems eager to showcase his own progressive brand of Muslim nationalism and make common cause against Iran. However, internecine disputes within the royal family eventually endanger Grant and his colleagues, a predicament lucidly portrayed by Keating. The plot is vigorously paced, crammed with vividly depicted action and drama. And despite its convolutions—there are simply too many entangled subplots—the reader is never lost in this accessible tale of international intrigue. Yet the novel is also a tapestry of pulp paperback tropes as implausible as they are formulaic—only within this peculiar genre of popular literature does one find caricatures like Grant. A lack of believability makes the latest installment of a running series a bit of a chore.
A spy novel that has moments of brilliance but inspires incredulity more than excitement.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2022
ISBN: 9798356500374
Page Count: 268
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A compelling take on the classic whodunit.
The shocking murder of a public figure at a high-end hotel has everyone guessing who the culprit might be.
Twenty-five-year-old Molly Gray, an eccentric young woman who's obsessed with cleaning but doesn't quite have the same ability to navigate social cues as those around her, loves working as a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel. Raised by her old-fashioned grandmother, who loved nothing more than cleaning and watching Columbo reruns, Molly has an overly polite and straightforward manner that can make her seem odd and off-putting to her colleagues despite her being the hardest worker at the hotel. After her grandmother's death, Molly's rigid life begins to lose some of its long-held balance, and when the infamous Mr. Charles Black, a rich and powerful businessman suspected of various criminal enterprises, is found murdered in one of the rooms she cleans, her whole world gets turned upside down. Before Molly knows what's happening, her odd demeanor has the police convinced she's guilty of the crime, and certain people at the hotel are a little too pleased about it. With the help of a few new friends (and while fending off new foes), she must begin to untangle the mystery of who really killed Mr. Black to get herself off the hook once and for all. Though the unusual ending might frustrate some readers, this unique debut will keep them reading.
A compelling take on the classic whodunit.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35615-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Friday Night Darks.
A high school football player and his coach struggle to survive the violence-strewn path to the Arkansas state championship.
Nobody, including himself, thinks that Billy Lowe is the star his brother Ricky was. Before he flamed out in a haze of alcohol and failing grades, Ricky was quarterback for the Denton Pirates; Billy’s just a running back. But the abuse he suffers at the hands of Travis Rodney, his mother’s lover of five years, and his obsessive comparisons of himself to his brother fuel both an unflinching determination to win and a rage that erupts without warning on and off the field. After Billy hits Austin Murphy so hard during practice that the well-connected sophomore is out five minutes with a concussion, Don Bradshaw, the school principal, draws up a list of conditions Billy will have to meet before he can take the field again. As if on cue, Trent Powers, the coach who considers Arkansas a purgatory to which the yearslong failure of the Fernando Valley Jaguars sent him from California, rips up most of the conditions because he can’t afford to lose the championship. Neither can his grimly supportive wife, Marley, the most sharply drawn character in a first novel bristling with dangerous energy. When Trent and assistant coach Bull Kennedy find Travis beaten to death, everyone assumes that Billy has finally turned on his tormentor. But Trent, who took Billy into his home when his mother, Tina, vamoosed with his baby brother, doubles down on his ability to offer the boy salvation, and Lorna, Trent’s teenage daughter, makes Billy her personal project. You can just imagine how well everyone’s plans for escape turn out.
Friday Night Darks.Pub Date: March 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-641-29345-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
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