Takes its time getting started, but once the story’s finally underway, readers will need a deep breath before taking this...
In Blanchard’s debut action novel, a U.S. Naval test pilot travels to Europe and, among his father’s inheritance, uncovers evidence of a Nazi device that the Nazis still desperately want.
Lt. Cmdr. Max DuMonde learns that his father, Thomas, who Max believed was killed in action years ago in Vietnam, died just recently in 2010. Thomas left his son a wealth of items, including classic, restored aircraft, but it’s German documents that bring Nazis to Max’s door. Apparently, near the end of World War II, the Nazis had developed a machine capable of generating a “dark gate,” which reputedly could create a fourth dimension. The SS in the 21st century hopes to complete the project, and they’re willing to do whatever it takes. Blanchard’s book utilizes its historical setting to great effect; though the bulk of it takes place in 2010, it opens with Marines—led by Maj. Dean DuMonde, Max’s grandfather—battling German soldiers in 1945 and even spends some time in the Colombian jungle with Thomas in ’66, where he stumbles upon the much-desired Nazi paperwork. Blanchard reverently details the planes that Thomas restored, such as the Storch, a German WWII plane, as well as the weaponry used in action sequences. Nevertheless, scenes such as Max testing the aircraft and trekking to the French Alps to spread his father’s ashes (and where he encounters a German family, most significantly his eventual love interest, Solange) seem to put the plot on hold; it’s nearly the halfway point when Nazis finally show up, demand at least part of Max’s inheritance and kidnap Solange. But once Max and his allies, including his Navy SEAL pal Val Vittoria, track down the villains to a castle near the Swiss border, the story becomes a nonstop, exhilarating barrage of gunfights and explosions. The particulars of what the Nazi device does aren’t fully revealed until near the end, and it’s quite a surprise. Blanchard rounds out his novel by adding suspense—there’s a traitor in the States who’s helping spearhead an operation to bring Max and company back home—and a smashing ending that sets the stage for a sequel.
Takes its time getting started, but once the story’s finally underway, readers will need a deep breath before taking this exciting ride of bullet-laden action.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 316
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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