An engrossing supernatural spy story.
A young American woman outwits Nazis through alchemy and espionage in Patten’s historical-fantasy debut.
Feeling rootless after the death of her father, 22-year-old American Penelope arrives in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1940 with a satchel of mystical items, including her father’s book and a unique stone necklace. Months before, her childhood friend Naomie Valentine, who gave her the necklace, wrote a letter urging her to come to the City of Light for an apprenticeship with her brother, a scientist and alchemist named Fulcanelli. Penelope draws the curiosity of fellow travelers and Nazi soldiers alike, who all wonder why she’d travel to war-torn Europe, alone, at a time when everyone else is fleeing. Fulcanelli turns out to be a part of the French Resistance; he boisterously welcomes Penelope into his giant laboratory, where he and others work in secret. They want Penelope to join the cause, which she does even as her mind races with questions: Where is Naomie, and why does Fulcanelli need the stone from her necklace? The dreamy yet dark tale unfolds quickly, intercut with flashbacks to Penelope’s old life in Sweetwater, Tennessee. In Paris, she works diligently in the lab, falls for an apprentice named Lucien, and tries to locate Naomie as war rages. After a botched mission leaves her with a recognizable scar, she flees London and learns to be a proper spy with the Special Operations Executive. Patten has clearly done thorough research on the real-life events surrounding her characters, but the tone is very much her own, with a touch of whimsy and modern-sounding dialogue. She ably sketches wartime Paris’ flocks of birds and towering monuments and cleverly weaves in fantasy elements, such as fountains that spout healing water and alchemic recipes that save people from certain death. Unfortunately, Penelope seems just a shade too perfect to be relatable; she’s not only a mathematician and alchemist, but also a great beauty and skilled dancer. Later on, some plot points don’t add up; it seems odd, for instance, that the British Resistance would train a native Tennessean to pose as a Frenchwoman. Still, Penelope and Lucien’s maturing romantic relationship has cross-genre appeal.
An engrossing supernatural spy story.Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7358082-0-8
Page Count: 426
Publisher: Ashland Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.
A woman’s life takes a stunning turn and a wall comes tumbling down in this tense Cold War spy drama.
In Berlin in 1989, the wall is about to crumble, and Anne Simpson’s husband, Stefan Koehler, goes missing. She is a translator working with refugees from the communist bloc, and he is a piano tuner who travels around Europe with orchestras. Or so he claims. German intelligence service the BND and America’s CIA bring her in for questioning, wrongly thinking she’s protecting him. Soon she begins to learn more about Stefan, whom she had met in the Netherlands a few years ago. She realizes he’s a “gregarious musician with easy charm who collected friends like a beachcomber collects shells, keeping a few, discarding most.” Police find his wallet in a canal and his prized zither in nearby bushes but not his body. Has he been murdered? What’s going on? And why does the BND care? If Stefan is alive, he’s in deep trouble, because he’s believed to be working for the Stasi. She’s told “the dead have a way of showing up. It is only the living who hide.” And she’s quite believable when she wonders, “Can you grieve for someone who betrayed you?” Smart and observant, she notes that the reaction by one of her interrogators is “as false as his toupee. Obvious, uncalled for, and easily put on.” Lurking behind the scenes is the Matchmaker, who specializes in finding women—“American. Divorced. Unhappy,” and possibly having access to Western secrets—who will fall for one of his Romeos. Anne is the perfect fit. “The matchmaker turned love into tradecraft,” a CIA agent tells her. But espionage is an amoral business where duty trumps decency, and “deploring the morality of spies is like deploring violence in boxers.” It’s a sentiment John le Carré would have endorsed, but Anne may have the final word.
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64313-865-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
