An entertaining, fast-paced heist thriller.
A debut novel focuses on the dogged hunt for a team of daring armed robbers.
In this book, Phillips takes readers into the world of high-value protection and road transportation, in which companies move cash, bullion, diamonds, and foreign currency in shipments of tamper-evident bags guarded by well-trained professionals. The author also introduces his readers to Mason Cooper, a violent giant of a man who wants to pull a very lucrative heist of that valuable cargo. Cooper is a British veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, as Phillips writes, “it was in this theatre that he developed a liking, even a panache, for killing.” Along with his partner, Cooper orchestrates an assault on a cash-transfer car in Slough, England, and gets away with millions, leaving chaos in his wake. Detective Inspector Chris Lamb and his superior, Chief Inspector Martin Haywood, begin their investigation, going on some slim evidence. They slowly piece together a case with the help of a lead from Manchester Narcotics, where a low-level informant has reported a couple of people trying to move millions of pounds out of the country. As the ripples of the crime make their way to the Continent, the hunt is conducted both by the police and the novel’s standout character, claims investigator Samantha Kelly. Kelly, working on behalf of the transport company and displaying a determination to trace the crime to its source, forms the dramatic heart of the book. The rest of the story that Phillips tells is a very competently done heist tale; he keeps the plot moving by shifting the narrative focus from chapter to chapter. Unfortunately, the action can often feel formulaic, and, aside from Cooper and Kelly, too many of the story’s characters show up only to deliver exposition. Still, the author deftly strips his engaging tale down to the essentials. Fans of Lee Child and James Patterson will get exactly what they’re craving.
An entertaining, fast-paced heist thriller.Pub Date: July 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-80227-600-8
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Fine Grisham storytelling that his fans will enjoy.
A descendant of enslaved people fights a Florida developer over the future of a small island.
In 1760, the slave ship Venus breaks apart in a storm on its way to Savannah, and only a few survivors, all Africans, find their way safely to a tiny barrier island between Florida and Georgia. For two centuries, only formerly enslaved people and their descendants live there. A curse on white people hangs over the island, and none who ever set foot on it survive. Its last resident was Lovely Jackson, who departed as a teen in 1955. Today—well, in 2020—a developer called Tidal Breeze wants Florida’s permission to “develop” Dark Isle, which sits within bridge-building distance from the well-established Camino Island. The plot is an easy setup for Grisham, big people vs. little people. Lovely’s revered ancestors are buried on Dark Isle, which Hurricane Leo devastated from end to end. Lovely claims the islet’s ownership despite not having formal title, and she wants white folks to leave the place alone. But apparently Florida doesn’t have enough casinos and golf courses to suit some people. Surely developers can buy off that little old Black lady with a half million bucks. No? How about a million? “I wish they’d stop offering money,” Lovely complains. “I ain’t for sale.” Thus a non-jury court trial begins to establish ownership. The story has no legal fireworks, just ordinary maneuvering. The real fun is in the backstory, in the portrayal of the aptly named Lovely, and the skittishness of white people to step on the island as long as the ancient curse remains. Lovely has self-published a history of the island, and a sympathetic white woman named Mercer Mann decides to write a nonfiction account as well. When that book ultimately comes out, reviewers for Kirkus (and others) “raved on and on.” Don’t expect stunning twists, though early on Dark Isle gives four white guys a stark message. The tension ends with the judge’s verdict, but the remaining 30 pages bring the story to a satisfying conclusion.
Fine Grisham storytelling that his fans will enjoy.Pub Date: May 28, 2024
ISBN: 9780385545990
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
This complicated gothic thriller of dueling spouses and homicidal writers is cleverly plotted and neatly tied up.
An unhappy British couple attempt to rekindle the magic with a weekend trip to a remote spot in Scotland.
How is she tricking me? Feeney, the author of Sometimes I Lie (2017) and His and Hers (2020), has trained her readers to start asking this question immediately with her puzzle-box narratives. Well, you won't find out here. Only the basics: Amelia's won a weekend getaway in an office raffle, and as the novel opens, she and her screenwriter husband, Adam, who suffers from face blindness, along with their dog, Bob, are miserably making their way through a snowstorm to a destination in the Scottish Highlands which is no Airbnb Superhost, that's for sure. A freezing cold, barely converted church with many locked rooms and malfunctioning electricity, the property also features a mysterious caretaker who has left firewood and a nice note but seems to be spying through the window. Both Adam and Amelia seem to be considering this weekend the occasion for ending the marriage by any means necessary—then Bob disappears. The narrative goes back and forth with first-person chapters by Amelia and Adam interleaved with a series of letters written to Adam on their anniversary through the years and keyed to the traditional gifts: paper, cotton, wood, leather, etc. There's also a rock and a scissors, referring to the children's game of the book title, which the couple use to make everyday decisions like "Should we stay together?" Offstage is the famous writer Henry Winter, whose novels Adam has made his fortune adapting; through several author-characters, Feeney weaves in sometimes-grim observations about the literary life. On meeting a sourpuss cashier at the rural grocery store: "The woman wore her bitterness like a badge; the kind of person who writes one-star book reviews."
This complicated gothic thriller of dueling spouses and homicidal writers is cleverly plotted and neatly tied up.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-26610-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
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