A compelling thriller that combines a healthy mix of real-world action and nefarious online activities.
Bach explores politics and technology in this international thriller.
The year is 2023; Phoenix Humboldt is attending Aragon High School in a suburb of San Francisco. When shots are fired from the school roof, Phoenix springs into action and attempts to protect other students with her body, getting hit in the process. It turns out the shooting was the work of a professional, who used “high-end military-grade equipment.” The shooter also managed to escape the scene without any problem. But why was Phoenix the only one who was shot? Phoenix’s father, Johnny Humboldt, is a divorced man who happens to be dating a U.S. senator and decorated Air Force veteran named Tamika Smith. Tamika received some perplexing emails on the morning of the shooting—threats from Air Force Capt. Derrick Tomlinson. This would be troubling enough, as Tomlinson sexually assaulted Tamika while they were in the military together, but Tomlinson is also supposed to be dead. Soon enough, Johnny is kidnapped. It becomes clear that a wealthy man named Lee Bowen is behind these events, but what exactly does he want? When Bowen anticipates that the “chaos he was creating would be epic,” the narrative does not disappoint. Bach’s eventful yarn takes readers from an “an autonomous firing nest” in an arboretum to trouble in the Netherlands to technological machinations that send the narrative “into cryptoland and across the dark web”; the school shooting is merely the beginning. While the reader is kept engaged and eager to see where all of this will lead, following the characters through their investigations is not always thrilling. Readers know who the bad guys are—it takes quite some time for the characters to catch up. Nevertheless, there is great excitement to be had in finding out if the malefactors can be stopped.
A compelling thriller that combines a healthy mix of real-world action and nefarious online activities.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9798886454000
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.
Evildoers plan attacks from America to India, and Jack Ryan Jr. is a prime target.
In Washington state, a man and his family are murdered, and President Jack Ryan learns it is another Poseidon Spear incident. Three retired members of that counterterrorism group have been killed now, and the U.S. government suspects a mole in its midst. Meanwhile, the Umayyad Revolutionary Council believes it has a holy and wholly anti-American mission. Against this backdrop, Jack Ryan Jr., and his fiancée, Lisanne Robertson, visit Delhi, India, to attend the wedding of Srini Rai, the brilliant surgeon who attached Lisanne’s prosthetic left arm. Lisanne had lost her arm in Tom Clancy Shadow of the Dragon (2020). Jack and Lisanne are both operators working for the Campus, a covert group that executes secret presidential directives. A wedding is a happy occasion, and the engaged American couple intend the trip as a vacation. Jack and Lisanne will attend a sangeet, an elaborate pre-wedding party. But it isn’t long before they survive a suicide bomb attack. As with all Clancy novels, there’s plenty of action on a global scale. In simultaneous strikes, terrorists plan to contaminate America’s Western water supply with radioactive waste from Washington’s Hanford nuclear power plant, blow up a spectacular new bridge in Kashmir, and kill the evil Ryan—or Junior, at least. It will be At-Takwir, the end of days. There is an appealing mix of Indian culture, high-speed action, and the rich lode of details that characterizes the whole series. And in the background lingers the question on several characters’ minds: Have Jack and Lisanne set their own wedding date?
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780593718032
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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