Considering the magnitude of the threat and the echoes of From Russia with Love and Diamonds Are Forever (the film, not the...
Someone’s threatening the security of the U.S. drone program, and according to MI5’s best information, it seems to be a combination of—wait for it—the Russians, the North Koreans and the South Koreans.
Before she ever applied to the Security Service, Liz Carlyle (Rip Tide, 2011, etc.) heard a lecture by political theorist Alexander Petrov that made a profound impression on her. Now, years after he joined Russian intelligence, he pops up in Geneva with an urgent message he’s only willing to deliver to “Lees Carlisle.” The message is that unauthorized outsiders have managed to breach the encryption codes of Operation Clarity, the U.S.-led program that governs the operation of drone aircraft. Already, unbeknownst to Liz or Petrov, computer jockeys in Nevada have watched in horror as one of their drones in the Mideast suddenly seemed to take on a mind of its own and ignore their commands. Naturally, Henry Pennington, Liz’s sniveling contact at the Clarity Secretariat, refuses to believe that anyone could have infiltrated the agency’s defenses. So Liz, seeking a clue to the real motives and identities of the conspirators, looks to Charlie Fielding, of the Ministry of Defense, and Andy Bokus, the CIA’s Station Chief in London, for help. As if Liz didn’t have enough on her plate already, Cathy Treglown, whose father has been keeping company with Liz’s mother, is being pressed by members of the French commune she just left to cough up a serious donation to their arms-purchasing fund—unless she wants one of their thugs to go after her little boy.
Considering the magnitude of the threat and the echoes of From Russia with Love and Diamonds Are Forever (the film, not the book), everything gets wrapped up suspiciously neatly, even though, as Liz sagely remarks, “I wonder if we’ll ever know what this was really all about.”Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60819-872-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.
Coulter’s treasured FBI agents take on two cases marked by danger and personal involvement.
Dillon Savitch and his wife, Lacey Sherlock, have special abilities that have served them well in law enforcement (Paradox, 2018, etc.). But that doesn't prevent Sherlock’s car from hitting a running man after having been struck by a speeding SUV that runs a red light. The runner, though clearly injured, continues on his way and disappears. Not so the SUV driver, a security engineer for the Bexholt Group, which has ties to government agencies. Sherlock’s own concussion causes memory loss so severe that she doesn’t recognize Savitch or remember their son, Sean. The whole incident seems more suspicious when a blood test from the splatter of the man Sherlock hit reveals that he’s Justice Cummings, an analyst for the CIA. The agency’s refusal to cooperate makes Savitch certain that Bexholt is involved in a deep-laid plot. Meanwhile, Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith is visiting friends who run a cafe in the touristy Virginia town of Gaffers Ridge. Hammersmith, who has psychic abilities, is taken aback when he hears in his mind a woman’s cry for help. Reporter Carson DeSilva, who came to the area to interview a Nobel Prize winner, also has psychic abilities, and she overhears the thoughts of Rafer Bodine, a young man who has apparently kidnapped and possibly murdered three teenage girls. Unluckily, she blurts out her thoughts, and she’s snatched and tied up in a cellar by Bodine. Bodine may be a killer, but he’s also the nephew of the sheriff and the son of the local bigwig. So the sheriff arrests Hammersmith and refuses to accept his FBI credentials. Bodine's mother has psychic powers strong enough to kill, but she meets her match in Hammersmith, DeSilva, Savitch, and Sherlock.
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9365-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Colorful, but best for those who don't mind Picoult's heavily sentimental style.
Teenaged witches, DNA evidence, Megan's Law, belladonna-laced tea, and an honest ex-con addicted to Jeopardy!, all mixed up in a well-researched if slightly disappointing small-town legal drama by veteran Picoult (Plain Truth, 2000, etc.).
Honest prep-school teacher and soccer coach Jack St. Bride has just completed an unjust sentence for statutory rape, to which he pleaded guilty only because a lazy lawyer persuaded him to hedge his bets. Somewhat unbelievably, he managed to escape being raped in prison by telling the brutal Mountain Felcher, "You're not going to break me." When he stops in Salem Falls, New Hampshire, to begin anew, things start looking up as he falls swiftly in love with his employer, fragile diner-owner Addie Peabody. The fact that she "tasted of coffee and loneliness" upon first kiss does not hinder Jack, but the law does: as a convicted sexual offender, he's required to register with the local police, and of course they can't keep a secret. Before long, there's widespread paranoia about the "dangerous rapist" on the loose in Salem Falls. Foremost of the alarmists is Amos Duncan, head of Duncan Pharmaceuticals, the town's only major corporation. His ire is exacerbated when his weird daughter Gillian, a devoted Wiccan, sets into action a chain of events that snares Jack in another rape charge—this time not merely statutory. One-third of the way in, the story turns into a courtroom battle between civil-liberties eccentric Jordan McAfee and sanctimonious prosecutor Matt Houlihan. Picoult's depiction of the legal process is excellent, especially her intriguing and thorough explanation of DNA evidence, and the narrative is impressively complicated, with a couple of eye-opening surprises. A few of the resolutions, however, seem contrived, and when the language turns lyrical or metaphorical, it falls flat.
Colorful, but best for those who don't mind Picoult's heavily sentimental style.Pub Date: April 10, 2001
ISBN: 0-7434-1870-0
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
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