An engaging tale highlighting the tensions of diplomatic immunity and introducing a surprisingly endearing hero.
In this thriller, a British soldier–turned-operative finds his world upended when his nephew is killed by a CIA agent’s wife, who flees to escape the consequences.
This series opener begins with two crosscutting events: British secret agent Toby Miller takes out a bomb maker in an unnamed country, and Madyson Lutz, distracted and driving on the wrong side of the road, runs over a teen cyclist. The accident happens near the British base where Madyson’s CIA agent husband has been working. The fates of these characters soon intertwine since the cyclist, who dies from his injuries, is Toby’s nephew. Madyson’s husband hustles his wife back to the United States, angry that she has messed up his career but claiming diplomatic immunity for the incident. Toby is told the news by his bosses, ordered to take a break at his former British army barracks, and watched regarding his mental state and potential for vigilantism (“Miller’s a bloody potent weapon, Her Majesty’s Armed Forces saw to that, and now we’ve given him more training, more responsibility, more deadly skills. He’s capable of a lot”). Lucy Bell, the policewoman who arrived at the accident scene, is part of the team sent to interview Madyson, although officials imply that extradition is unlikely. Once this proves to be the case, Toby, whose sister and brother-in-law are suffering greatly from grief, travels to the U.S. to kill Madyson. But the situation turns out to be not at all what Toby expects. Green’s thriller has an intriguing inciting incident, prompting its core characters to create and rally around a “4DC,” or For Diplomatic Change, movement. The book’s midsection gets bogged down a bit with conversations among various officials who are ultimately minor characters. But overall, the story is a well-paced page-turner driving readers to its dramatic meeting between Toby and Madyson. Toby is also an appealing series protagonist, with his tough-guy persona leavened by both humorous and emotional interactions with family and others.
An engaging tale highlighting the tensions of diplomatic immunity and introducing a surprisingly endearing hero.Pub Date: June 25, 2022
ISBN: 9798837056529
Page Count: 389
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
© 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.
