A superior thriller with real-world chaos and well-credentialed heroes that will engage fans of the genre.
Uranium stolen in 1994 is used in a present-day attack on a United States Navy command ship with a threat of more to come in DeGrandpre’s thriller.
“Me?…I’m just an interpreter,” proclaims young CIA officer Bill Estes. Right, and Jack Ryan was just an analyst in Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October. Based on his smarts and resourcefulness in this techno-thriller, Bill Estes, too, may have a franchise in his future. Estes, “a natural for the intelligence service,” is just 18 months into his employment with the CIA when he receives his first field mission to Kazakhstan. With no authority to make anything happen, he is promised that the mission will be “neither terribly exciting nor demanding.” Wrong on both counts: A nuclear device destroys a Navy command ship, wipes out a fishing village, and disrupts communications and electronics. Is this a test device? Estes believes so, and together with FBI Special Agent Michelle Marsh he pursues whoever stole the uranium used in the attack. The plan is simple, Estes tells Marsh: “Relentless pursuit.” The pursuit leads them to Konstantin Pavlovich, who is obsessed with nuclear gadgetry, and to mercenary and arms dealer Grigori Kirill, who, as he demonstrates with ruthless efficiency, is not someone to be messed with. DeGrandpre brings a sense of authenticity to this propulsive global thriller that spans decades and features far-flung locations from Tennessee to Russia. Understatement serves the author well, heightening the suspense and menace: “Kon never learned exactly what Yuri had done to upset Kirill; all he knew was that the man must have done something, because one day, some ex-Soviet KGB henchmen showed up in a military 4x4 and shot Yuri pointblank for trespassing.” Chapter headings undermine the story’s momentum, but the characters, major and minor, are strongly defined, and an effective open ending sets the stage for an anticipated second mission.
A superior thriller with real-world chaos and well-credentialed heroes that will engage fans of the genre.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 321
Publisher: Sad Story Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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