An often surprising espionage tale that favors strategy over action.
In this thriller sequel, a CIA assassin attempts to shut down an international organization targeting the families of American government leaders.
Jack Bear believed he was done with the CIA. After someone in the agency tried to murder him, he was listed as killed in action and taken off the payroll. Now, he focuses on his cover job as an airline pilot. But one flight goes horribly wrong, and Jack is forced to crash-land. When an aggressive police officer tries obtaining a sample of Jack’s blood after the crash, the pilot responds physically—a move that ultimately proves fatal for the cop. The CIA offers to shield Jack from a murder charge, provided he work for the agency again. The mission: assassinating a man known as George who leads a cabal headquartered in South America and is intent on controlling United States leaders. When officials won’t accept bribes, the cabal murders their children. Jack recruits some old friends, from a renowned hacker to a retired sniper. But shortly after the operation is under way, Jack is certain there’s a rat on his side. And while he may not be liable for the cop’s death, he soon finds himself accused of a different crime. Despite the titular hero’s aptitude for killing targets without remorse, Jeppesen’s sequel to Jack Bear: X-Ops (2016) has relatively few action scenes. The story focuses on characters’ planning and discussing mission details. Still, Jack evinces his capability during the occasional scuffle as well as in the pilot’s seat. The tale also delivers unexpected turns, particularly with regard to an unknown person who seems to be aiding Jack in South America. Unfortunately, Jack can be an inconsistent protagonist; for example, his motivation for assassinating George seemingly alternates among avoiding a murder charge, pursuing financial gain, and showing his patriotism. The final act, though, which centers more on the charges Jack faces than on the assassination operation, is exciting and thoroughly engaging.
An often surprising espionage tale that favors strategy over action. (dedication, acknowledgements, author bio)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-65309-9
Page Count: 437
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
High art meets low life in a tale a lot more sympathetic to the latter.
Someone is stalking the streets of Lt. Eve Dallas’s New York, intent on bringing new life to sex workers by snuffing out their old ones.
In 2061, prostitutes are called licensed companions, and that’s Leesa Culver’s job description when she’s accosted by a plausible-looking artist who wants to hire her as a model for the night. Before the night is over, she’s been drugged, strangled, costumed, and posed as an uncanny replica of Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring. The shock of the crime is deepened by the murder the following night of licensed companion Bobby Ren, whose body is discovered at an art gallery entrance costumed and posed as Gainsborough’s Blue Boy. The killer clearly has an obsessive agenda, a rapid-fire timetable, and access to unlimited financial resources that have allowed him to commission expensive custom-made outfits for the victims. This last detail both marks his power and points to the way Dallas, her gazillionaire husband, Roarke, and her sidekick, Det. Delia Peabody, will track him down by methodically narrowing the field of consumers who’ve purchased the costly costumes. After identifying the guilty party two-thirds of the way through the story, they’ll still face an uphill battle convicting a killer with no conscience, no respect for the law, and a budget that would easily cover the means to jump bail, remove his ankle tracker, and hire a private jet to escape to a foreign land with no extradition treaty. Robb keeps it all consistently absorbing by sweating every procedural detail along with her heroine. Only Dallas’ climactic interrogation of her prisoner is a letdown, because it’s perfectly obvious how she’s going to wangle a confession out of him.
High art meets low life in a tale a lot more sympathetic to the latter.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781250370822
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.
What should be a rare horror—a woman gone missing—becomes a pattern in Kubica's latest thriller.
One night, a young mother goes for a run. She never comes home. A few weeks later, the body of Meredith, another missing woman, is found with a self-inflicted knife wound; the only clue about the fate of her still-missing 6-year-old daughter, Delilah, is a note that reads, "You’ll never find her. Don’t even try." Eleven years later, a girl escapes from a basement where she’s been held captive and severely abused; she reports that she is Delilah. Kubica alternates between chapters in the present narrated by Delilah’s younger brother, Leo, now 15 and resentful of the hold Delilah’s disappearance and Meredith’s death have had on his father, and chapters from 11 years earlier, narrated by Meredith and her neighbor Kate. Meredith begins receiving texts that threaten to expose her and tear her life apart; she struggles to keep them, and her anxiety, from her family as she goes through the motions of teaching yoga and working as a doula. One client in particular worries her; Meredith fears her husband might be abusing her, and she's also unhappy with the way the woman’s obstetrician treats her. So this novel is both a mystery about what led to Meredith’s death and Delilah’s imprisonment and the story of what Delilah's return might mean to her family and all their well-meaning neighbors. Someone is not who they seem; someone has been keeping secrets for 11 long years. The chapters complement one another like a patchwork quilt, slowly revealing the rotten heart of a murderer amid a number of misdirections. The main problem: As it becomes clear whodunit, there’s no true groundwork laid for us to believe that this person would behave at all the way they do.
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-778-38944-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Park Row Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
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