Byrne’s journey and its genuinely surprising discoveries provide an engaging core to a tale hampered by repetitions,...
The shooting of an old man at the U.N. sends a lawyer to London, where he uncovers yet another dark tale from the Holocaust, in British journalist Bourne’s thriller, which is based on actual events.
As heads of government arrive in New York to speak to the General Assembly during U.N. Week, the world organization’s security staff has good reason to be on high alert for terrorists. And a U.N. guard also has good reason to shoot and kill a suspicious man who appears to be carrying an explosive. The victim, Gerald Merton, seems a harmless, unarmed 77-year-old man. But at once, and to no great surprise, clues and questions emerge suggesting he actually may have been an assassin. During an autopsy, lawyer Tom Byrne, called in on the case by the U.N., notes how muscular the man was, especially for his age. Also curious is the fact that Merton, a Jew, was un-circumcised. Moreover, Merton’s phone shows he made a call to a Russian arms dealer and, later, New York police uncover a gun beneath the floorboards of his apartment. To find out what Merton was up to, Byrne flies to London to question the victim’s daughter, Rebecca. Spurning Byrne, she lashes out at the U.N. for killing a Holocaust survivor. Passion, of course, has its way: “[Byrne] could smell her, the scent flooding him with lust.” Soon they share an “urgent” kiss and then endeavor to learn the nature of Merton’s mission. From Merton’s journals, Byrne learns that during World War II, Merton was spirited into the Jewish underground, eventually leading a mission that would continue long after the conflict. Byrne also discovers several passports that suggest Merton traveled under several aliases and news clippings that may explain his intentions. When Rebecca’s flat is ransacked, it appears someone else is on to Merton’s case.
Byrne’s journey and its genuinely surprising discoveries provide an engaging core to a tale hampered by repetitions, unnecessary subplots and preachy dialogue.Pub Date: Dec. 7, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-187574-8
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
Be warned: It's a stay-up-all-night kind of book. Compulsively readable.
Amy Whey’s sins come back to haunt her when she’s extorted for money by a beautiful stranger in Jackson’s (The Almost Sisters, 2017, etc.) first thriller.
It was supposed to be book club as usual: a group of suburban mothers gathering to talk over a glass of wine or two and then going home to bed. But when new neighbor Angelica Roux shows up at hostess Amy’s door, it doesn’t take long for all hell to break loose. The booze flows freely, and soon the women are engaged in a game: What is the worst thing you did today? This week? This month? In your life? There are many women in the gathering with secrets to protect, but none more than Amy, who, as a teenager, committed a terrible crime that almost destroyed her. Saved by her love for diving, and then by meeting her husband and stepdaughter, Amy has worked hard to build a normal, stable life; she even has a new baby. Angelica has come to threaten all of this; she clearly knows about Amy’s past and will expose her to her loved ones if Amy doesn’t pay her. As Amy tries desperately to outscheme Angelica, she also realizes just how much she has to fight for—and what she might be willing to do to keep her family safe and her secrets buried. Jackson’s novel is chock-full of dramatic reveals and twisty turns, but she paces them out well, dropping them like regularly spaced bombshells. Just when the reader thinks they know what might lie at the heart of the novel, the ground shifts seismically, and the truth removes again to a distance. It’s skillfully done. Amy herself is an openly flawed and relatable character fighting to keep sacred the one thing she values most: her normal, loving, messy life.
Be warned: It's a stay-up-all-night kind of book. Compulsively readable.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-285531-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
Neither story is anywhere near Westlake’s best work, but they still make a terrific tragicomic pair.
Hard Case revives a pair of movie-related novellas originally published under the cryptic title Enough in 1977.
A Travesty, the first and longer of these stories, opens with movie reviewer Carey Thorpe standing over the dead body of actress Laura Penney, the lover with whom his quarrel had suddenly and fatally escalated. Even though her death was technically an accident, Carey, who doesn’t want anyone connecting him with it, immediately begins concealing all indications that he was ever in her apartment. It’s all for naught: Soon he finds himself blackmailed by private detective John Edgarson and having to commit another felony to satisfy his demands. From that point on, his dilemma rapidly spirals into one of the comic nightmares in which Westlake (Brothers Keepers, 1975/2019, etc.) specialized: Moments in which he’s threatened with exposure alternate with long intervals in which NYPD DS Al Bray and especially DS Fred Staples, who’ve decided that he’s innocent, take Carey under their wings, marveling at his ability to solve murders committed by other people; then he caps his transgressions by taking Staples’ wife, Patricia, to bed. The second novella, Ordo, couldn’t be more different. The naval mates of Ordo Tupikos, a deeply ordinary San Diego sailor, tell him that Estelle Anlic, the woman whose marriage to him was annulled years ago when the courts, egged on by her mother, discovered that she was underage, has transformed herself into movie star Dawn Devayne. Against all odds, he manages to reintroduce himself to Estelle, or Dawn, but although her agent plays it as a storybook reunion, Orry just can’t find Estelle in Dawn, who’s changed a lot more than he has, and the tale ends on a note of sad resignation.
Neither story is anywhere near Westlake’s best work, but they still make a terrific tragicomic pair.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-78565-720-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
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