A complex and atmospheric thriller—perhaps not the best jumping-on point but a satisfying entry in a standout historical...
The troubled and troubling Inspector Pekkala returns from exile to find himself trapped between giants at the end of World War II.
For U.S. readers, this may be a confusing relaunch of a dynamic World War II spy series, but it’s bound to make those new to Eastland (Archive 17, 2012, etc.) seek out his other books. To clarify: This is the fifth Inspector Pekkala novel, released by new publisher OPUS, but the fourth book in the series, The Red Moth, will be published after this one. Add to the confusion the fact that British spy novelist Eastland has been newly revealed as a pseudonym for American literary novelist Paul Watkins (Ice Soldier, 2005, etc.), and it all gets a bit murky. To catch up, Inspector Pekkala is a Holmes-ian fellow who was once personal detective to Czar Nicholas II and now reluctantly works for the Communists. As the book begins circa 1944, Pekkala has disappeared at the Western front and is presumed dead. Refusing to believe the inspector has perished, Josef Stalin assigns Pekkala’s best friend and assistant, Maj. Kirov, to seek him out. While Kirov searches for Pekkala, Eastland also unfolds the eerie tale of William Vasko, a New Jersey steelworker who comes to Russia in 1936 seeking work and becomes trapped behind the growing veil of Soviet secrecy. When Pekkala surfaces, he's stalked by an icy German assassin who wants personal revenge, and he joins forces with a partisan warlord in an attempt to mitigate the bloody violence between the Russians and the partisan movement in the Ukraine. In a smart move, Eastland depicts his fictional Stalin as more than a James Bond villain, painting him as a conflicted, lonely tyrant whose retribution against slights both real and imagined makes him a very dangerous opponent.
A complex and atmospheric thriller—perhaps not the best jumping-on point but a satisfying entry in a standout historical series.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62316-049-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: OPUS
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
This thriller is taut and fast-paced but lacks compelling protagonists.
Three siblings who have been out of touch for more than 20 years grapple with their unsettling childhoods, but when the youngest inherits the family home, all are drawn back together.
At the age of 25, Libby Jones learns she has inherited a large London house that was held in a trust left to her by her birthparents. When she visits the lawyer, she is shocked to find out that she was put up for adoption when she was 10 months old after her parents died in the house in an apparent suicide pact with an unidentified man and that she has an older brother and sister who were teenagers at the time of their parents' deaths and haven't been seen since. Meanwhile, in alternating narratives, we're introduced to Libby's sister, Lucy Lamb, who's on the verge of homelessness with her two children in the south of France, and her brother, Henry Lamb, who's attempting to recall the last few disturbing years with his parents during which they lost their wealth and were manipulated into letting friends move into their home. These friends included the controlling but charismatic David Thomsen, who moved his own wife and two children into the rooms upstairs. Henry also remembers his painful adolescent confusion as he became wildly infatuated with Phineas, David’s teenage son. Meanwhile, Libby connects with Miller Roe, the journalist who covered the story about her family, and the pair work together to find her brother and sister, determine what happened when she was an infant, and uncover who has recently been staying in the vacant house waiting for Libby to return. As Jewell (Watching You, 2018, etc.) moves back and forth from the past to the present, the narratives move swiftly toward convergence in her signature style, yet with the exception of Lucy’s story, little suspense is built up and the twists can’t quite make up for the lack of deep characters and emotionally weighty moments.
This thriller is taut and fast-paced but lacks compelling protagonists.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9010-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
One of those rare thrillers whose revelations actually intensify its suspense instead of dissipating it. The final pages are...
A perfect wife’s disappearance plunges her husband into a nightmare as it rips open ugly secrets about his marriage and, just maybe, his culpability in her death.
Even after they lost their jobs as magazine writers and he uprooted her from New York and spirited her off to his childhood home in North Carthage, Mo., where his ailing parents suddenly needed him at their side, Nick Dunne still acted as if everything were fine between him and his wife, Amy. His sister Margo, who’d gone partners with him on a local bar, never suspected that the marriage was fraying, and certainly never knew that Nick, who’d buried his mother and largely ducked his responsibilities to his father, stricken with Alzheimer’s, had taken one of his graduate students as a mistress. That’s because Nick and Amy were both so good at playing Mr. and Ms. Right for their audience. But that all changes the morning of their fifth anniversary when Amy vanishes with every indication of foul play. Partly because the evidence against him looks so bleak, partly because he’s so bad at communicating grief, partly because he doesn’t feel all that grief-stricken to begin with, the tide begins to turn against Nick. Neighbors who’d been eager to join the police in the search for Amy begin to gossip about him. Female talk-show hosts inveigh against him. The questions from Detective Rhonda Boney and Detective Jim Gilpin get sharper and sharper. Even Nick has to acknowledge that he hasn’t come close to being the husband he liked to think he was. But does that mean he deserves to get tagged as his wife’s killer? Interspersing the mystery of Amy’s disappearance with flashbacks from her diary, Flynn (Dark Places, 2009, etc.) shows the marriage lumbering toward collapse—and prepares the first of several foreseeable but highly effective twists.
One of those rare thrillers whose revelations actually intensify its suspense instead of dissipating it. The final pages are chilling.Pub Date: June 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-58836-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
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