More suave than Bond and just as death-proof, brainy, and with a touch more brawn, Bill Lane of the National Security Agency (Kilo Option, 1996, etc.) once more takes on ex-KGB assassin Valeri Yernin (“the Surgeon”), who’s less dead than was once thought. The Barents Sea is the graveyard of Russian nuclear reactors and ships no longer serviceable. But when a Romeo-class diesel-electric sub is —accidentally— scuttled there with no survivors yet actually seems to be on its way to Morocco for sale to Sierra Leone—or perhaps to a country even closer to the US—Lane attempts to divert the sale and offers a Russian diplomat in Washington twice the price suggested by the enemy. Yernin, meanwhile, vows to kill Lane, knowing that his Achilles— heel is Lane’s fellow spy and fiancÇe Francis Shipley, a lieutenant commander in the British Navy and liaison between the SIS and CIA intelligence communities. Disguised as Vandemeer, a South African with a letter of credit for 100 million pounds sterling, Lane flies to London and dickers with the Russians. Yernin arrives as well. Is the assassin now finding Russians who have illegally salted money away in offshore banks, killing them, then draining their accounts? Lane himself has an $8 million inheritance, which keeps him in fawn-colored, hand-tailored Italian silk suits, HÇrmes ties, cashmere sweaters, Gucci loafers—or hand-sewn half boots—and the best Dom Perignon, with Francis telling him, “My God, you’re gorgeous.— Yernin bungles his first attack on Lane and Francis. A second attempted assassination also fails. Then Yernin kidnaps Francis and flies her off to the Western Sahara, straps a Semtex bomb to her leg, and awaits the arrival of Lane. Fast and amusing. If Flannery (a.k.a. David Hagberg) has any luck, his hero could rise to the top as a Bond clone.
Pub Date: Aug. 31, 1998
ISBN: 0-312-85772-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
Chavez delivers a fraught if flawed page-turner that attempts too many twists.
A good Samaritan incurs a psychopath’s wrath in this debut thriller.
Veterinarian Cassie Larkin is heading home after a 12-hour shift when someone darts in front of her car, causing her to dump her energy drink. As she pulls over to mop up the mess, her headlights illuminate a couple having a physical altercation. Cassie calls 911, but before help arrives, the man tosses the woman down an embankment. Ignoring the dispatcher’s instructions, Cassie exits the vehicle and intervenes, preventing the now-unconscious woman’s murder. With sirens wailing in the distance, the man warns Cassie: “Let her die, and I’ll let you live.” He then scrambles back to the road and flees in Cassie’s van. Using mug shots, Cassie identifies the thief and would-be killer as Carver Sweet, who is wanted for poisoning his wife. The Santa Rosa police assure Cassie of her safety, but the next evening, her husband, Sam, vanishes while trick-or-treating with their 6-year-old daughter, Audrey. Hours later, he sends texts apologizing and confessing to an affair, but although it’s true that Sam and Cassie have been fighting, she suspects foul play—particularly given the previous night’s events. Cassie files a report with the cops, but they dismiss her concerns, leaving Cassie to investigate on her own. After a convoluted start, Chavez embarks on a paranoia-fueled thrill ride, escalating the stakes while exploiting readers’ darkest domestic fears. The far-fetched plot lacks cohesion and relies too heavily on coincidence to be fully satisfying, but the reader will be invested in learning the Larkin family’s fate through to the too-pat conclusion.
Chavez delivers a fraught if flawed page-turner that attempts too many twists.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-293617-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
With its flat, staccato tone and mournful mood, it’s almost as if the book itself were suffering from depression.
A young Philadelphia policewoman searches for her addicted sister on the streets.
The title of Moore’s (The Unseen World, 2016, etc.) fourth novel refers to “a long bright river of departed souls,” the souls of people dead from opioid overdoses in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Kensington. The book opens with a long paragraph that's just a list of names, most of whom don’t have a role in the plot, but the last two entries are key: “Our mother. Our father.” As the novel opens, narrator Mickey Fitzpatrick—a bright but emotionally damaged single mom—is responding with her partner to a call. A dead girl has turned up in an abandoned train yard frequented by junkies. Mickey is terrified that it will be her estranged sister, Kacey, whom she hasn’t seen in a while. The two were raised by their grandmother, a cold, bitter woman who never recovered from the overdose death of the girls' mother. Mickey herself is awkward and tense in all social situations; when she talks about her childhood she mentions watching the other kids from the window, trying to memorize their mannerisms so she could “steal them and use them [her]self.” She is close with no one except her 4-year-old son, Thomas, whom she barely sees because she works so much, leaving him with an unenthusiastic babysitter. Opioid abuse per se is not the focus of the action—the book centers on the search for Kacey. Obsessed with the possibility that her sister will end up dead before she can find her, Mickey breaches protocol and makes a series of impulsive decisions that get her in trouble. The pace is frustratingly slow for most of the book, then picks up with a flurry of revelations and developments toward the end, bringing characters onstage we don’t have enough time to get to know. The narrator of this atmospheric crime novel has every reason to be difficult and guarded, but the reader may find her no easier to bond with than the other characters do.
With its flat, staccato tone and mournful mood, it’s almost as if the book itself were suffering from depression.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-54067-0
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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