A sharp, sexy high-tech adventure about two lovers working within easily corrupted systems.
In James’ sequel to Ethos of Cain (2023), set in the future, a former mercenary and a strong-willed diplomat work to protect coastal Europeans while also keeping each other safe from harm.
Cainhas been engineering off-the-books heists his whole life, but he’s lately settled into a new, more reputable occupation in Brussels. He’s the chief of security for Francesca Pieralisi, the former mayor of Venice who’s now the director of implementation for the European Seawall Foundation; she and Cain also happen to be lovers. His new job allows them the luxury of living together for the first time, and it also gives him access to the full gamut of European intelligence technology. Among them is Serval, artificial-intelligence surveillance that should be able to recognize someone who’s been stalking Francesca lately; however, for some reason, the tech can’t even detect the interloper’s presence. Meanwhile, Francesca feels the limits of diplomacy as Black Horizon—a commercial entity that’s been legally recognized as a sovereign state—and other companies attempt to seize votes in the ESF to control the factories that will construct the seawalls. All eyes are on Francesca as she attempts to navigate growing threats to the ESF’s best interests, as well as to her political reputation and safety. In this series installment, James’ already expansive world grows, juxtaposing the backdrop of real-life Brussels (and its Berlaymont building) with new, fictional locations, including lush resorts in outer space and abandoned shipyards on Earth. New technology, such as Serval and weapon-heavy NMX-23 exoskeleton suits, heighten the tension of the ESF politics and add interest to the thrilling action sequences: “Four men in NMX-23 assault exoskeletons jumped down, shattering the flagstones beneath them, before the less-armored team members fast-roped down.” Despite some drawn-out platitudes about abuses of economic and political power, Cain and Francesca’s dialogue crackles with chemistry, whether they’re bantering over a candlelit dinner or planning a quick escape from rogue military operatives gunning for their lives.
A sharp, sexy high-tech adventure about two lovers working within easily corrupted systems.Pub Date: June 1, 2024
ISBN: 9798322482734
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
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