Star-crossed lovers and warring gangs: Methinks the Bard would love it.
Romeo and Juliet meet the Russian Mafia in this bloody saga.
Mikhail Gorbachev resigns, and the Soviet Union becomes the Commonwealth of Independent States. But with communism suddenly gone, capitalism faces enormous hurdles. Anyone trying to start a new business must pay criminals for a roof, or, in Western parlance, for protection. Two major gangs vie for control of the Moscow turf. Timur the Lame, a veteran of Strict Regime Corrective Labor Colony No. 40, is said to descend from Tamerlane. But the “Israelite pakhan Naum Caplan is the new boy in town.” Pakhan is the honorific given the senior vor, or thief. Timur’s gang happens to hate Jews—international Jewish conspiracy, yadda yadda—but they would probably kill each other over the lucrative turf anyway. Roman Timurovich Monsurov, Timur’s son, is attracted to Yulia, Caplan’s daughter. The pull is mutual and mostly physical, though it could develop into love if they were given a chance. A suspicious Timur warns, “Beware of tying knots with Jewesses, my darling son.” But then one of Timur’s thugs shoots one of Caplan’s thugs in the knee, Caplan decides to repay the offense with interest, and a war is on. Meanwhile, Osip Axelrod is chief of the Organized Crime Control Department, and his boss wants him to deliver Timur’s scalp on a platter. Literally. “Help them kill each other off when you can!” boss man says; “What Mother Russia needs to become great again…is more funerals.” Romeo and Juliet—sorry, Roman and Yulia—decide to escape all the mayhem if they possibly can. The Shakespearean plot would be clear even if the lovers’ names had been Boris and Galina, but the author lays it on thick with several references to Willy Shake Shaft. Duh, hit me over the head again, Mr. Littell! That said, the author illuminates the turbulence in post-communist Russian society, a perfect venue for a crime yarn.
Star-crossed lovers and warring gangs: Methinks the Bard would love it.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9798212227711
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A standout in the series.
The sixth adventure of Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon explores the mysteries of human consciousness, the demonic projects of the CIA, and the city of Prague.
“Ladies and gentlemen...we are about to experience a sea change in our understanding of how the brain works, the nature of consciousness, and in fact…the very nature of reality itself.” But first—Langdon’s in love! Brown’s devoted readers first met brilliant noetic scientist Katherine Solomon in The Lost Symbol (2009); she’s back as a serious girlfriend, engaging the committed bachelor in a way not seen before. The book opens with the pair in a luxurious suite at the Four Seasons in Prague. It’s the night after Katherine has delivered the lecture quoted above, setting the theme for the novel, which features a plethora of real-life cases and anomalies that seem to support the notion that human consciousness is not localized inside the human skull. Brown’s talent for assembling research is also evident in this novel’s alter ego as a guidebook to Prague, whose history and attractions are described in great and glowing detail. Whether you appreciate or skim past the innumerable info dumps on these and other topics (Jewish folklore fans—the Golem is in the house!), it goes without saying that concision is not a goal in the Dan Brown editing process. Speaking of editing, the nearly 700-page book is dedicated to Brown’s editor, who seems to appear as a character—to put it in the italicized form used for Brownian insight, Jason Kaufman must be Jonas Faukman! A major subplot involves the theft of Katherine’s manuscript from the secure servers of Penguin Random House; the delightful Faukman continues to spout witty wisecracks even when blindfolded and hogtied. There’s no shortage of action, derring-do, explosions, high-tech torture machines, attempted and successful murders, and opportunities for split-second, last-minute escapes; good thing Langdon, this aging symbology wonk, never misses swimming his morning laps. Readers who are not already dyed-in-the-wool Langdonites may find themselves echoing the prof’s own conclusion regarding the credibility of all this paranormal hoo-ha: At some point, skepticism itself becomes irrational.
A standout in the series.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780385546898
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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