by Robert Goddard ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 2, 2017
The third and most satisfying entry in an excellent series of old-school spy thrillers.
The sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons in the climax of this post–WWI historical thriller series by Goddard (The Corners of the Globe, 2016, etc.).
After teasing readers with cliffhangers in The Ways of the World (2015) and The Corners of the Globe (2016), Goddard finally makes good by unraveling the mysteries that perplexed his flying ace–turned-spy, James “Max” Maxted. To recap, undercover agent Max is fighting a secret war on two fronts circa 1919. First, he’s trying to ferret out German spymaster Fritz Lemmer’s network of agents embedded across Europe and Great Britain. Second, but more important, Max wants to find out why his diplomat father was murdered in Japan, with all leads pointing to vicious gangster Count Tomura Iwazu. Max, sorry to say, is dead as the book opens—his buddies Sam Twentyman and Malory Hollander, among others, have received a photo of Max with a bullet in his head in Marseilles. The body count just piles up from there as killer assassins and other dangerous opponents come into play and Max’s team must outwit, outfight, and outlast their enemies. Goddard’s first two entries were relatively sedate affairs focused on the tradecraft of gentlemen spies and the decorum of societal diplomacy. Thankfully, he delivers a lot more action here as a resurfaced Max and his allies work to outsmart Lemmer, survive a cruel and dangerous postwar Japan, and discover a secret that Count Tomura has kept locked away for decades. It’s a surprising twist but one that takes quite a lot of narrative maneuvers and a few unlikely kidnappings to achieve. Nonetheless, Goddard has crafted a thrilling entry to tie up most of his loose ends, although he’s left himself enough room to continue the series if he so wishes. By the time Max and Sam head back into the wild blue yonder, this spy story has reached new heights as well.
The third and most satisfying entry in an excellent series of old-school spy thrillers.Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2656-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
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by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 23, 2017
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days...
In 1876, professor Edward Cope takes a group of students to the unforgiving American West to hunt for dinosaur fossils, and they make a tremendous discovery.
William Jason Tertullius Johnson, son of a shipbuilder and beneficiary of his father’s largess, isn’t doing very well at Yale when he makes a bet with his archrival (because every young man has one): accompany “the bone professor” Othniel Marsh to the West to dig for dinosaur fossils or pony up $1,000, but Marsh will only let Johnson join if he has a skill they can use. They need a photographer, so Johnson throws himself into the grueling task of learning photography, eventually becoming proficient. When Marsh and the team leave without him, he hitches a ride with another celebrated paleontologist, Marsh’s bitter rival, Edward Cope. Despite warnings about Indian activity, into the Judith badlands they go. It’s a harrowing trip: they weather everything from stampeding buffalo to back-breaking work, but it proves to be worth it after they discover the teeth of what looks to be a giant dinosaur, and it could be the discovery of the century if they can only get them back home safely. When the team gets separated while transporting the bones, Johnson finds himself in Deadwood and must find a way to get the bones home—and stay alive doing it. The manuscript for this novel was discovered in Crichton’s (Pirate Latitudes, 2009, etc.) archives by his wife, Sherri, and predates Jurassic Park (1990), but if readers are looking for the same experience, they may be disappointed: it’s strictly formulaic stuff. Famous folk like the Earp brothers make appearances, and Cope and Marsh, and the feud between them, were very real, although Johnson is the author’s own creation. Crichton takes a sympathetic view of American Indians and their plight, and his appreciation of the American West, and its harsh beauty, is obvious.
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days of American paleontology.Pub Date: May 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-247335-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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by Karin Slaughter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 29, 2015
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
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Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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