An often compelling adventure, built around the premise of an international manhunt.
In Maitland-Lewis’ thriller sequel to Legacy of Atonement (2023),a married couple in Argentina confronts a Nazi conspiracy.
This explosive novel is built around an unlikely premise: Given the opportunity, who could pass up capturing a fugitive Adolf Hitler, and his wife, Eva Braun? However, this is exactly what stay-at-home mom Giselle and her husband, Felipe, want to do after a harrowing confrontation with the former dictator at his Paraguayan compound, “where he was medically experimenting on children no older than my daughter,” she recalls. Now re-established in cosmopolitan Buenos Aires, Giselle and Felipe simply want to live their lives and raise their daughter, even though a plan is apparently in the works to re-establish Hitler and the Nazis. The appearance of Karen Fegel, the nanny of Giselle’s friend, upends the family’s plans. Giselle’s uncle, Daniel Lavy—a former agent of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service—suspects that the nanny is actually Karen Fegelein, the daughter of Gretl Braun (Eva’s sister) and a notorious SS commander who was shot for desertion. Gisele, Daniel, and Felipe rapidly find themselves pulled into a nerve-wracking international chase that drives them to their limits, “as though the war had never ended for them.” They’re also haunted by the knowledge that failure is simply not an option. Over the course of this thriller, Maitland-Lewis does an exceptional job of weaving historical details into a narrative that unfolds at a brisk pace within its tightly written framework. Although readers will see a particular cameo coming, they likely won’t expect the final twist, which raises an unsettling final question: At what point is it necessary to settle for less than total justice? Aficionados of alternative history and World War II fiction will enjoy pondering such notions.
An often compelling adventure, built around the premise of an international manhunt.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2025
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Nail-biting and pressure-packed.
Jack Ryan Jr. and company race to stop a killer wave in this Tom Clancy thriller.
The ship Meridian Star departs eastern Russia unknowingly carrying a pair of containers with radioactive cesium chloride. The vessel is hijacked and scuttled in Micronesia near the Mariana Trench, and the crew is murdered. A huge insurance claim results, and Jack, an accomplished deep-sea diver who works for Hendley Associates, is there to investigate. The hostile Chinese learn it’s there and want that illicit cargo. Meanwhile, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center discovers a huge, mysterious object in 600 feet of water. At that depth, the pressure is unsurvivable without complex special equipment, which is vintage Tom Clancy. Whatever the strange object is, it’s “not a ship…not a submarine…not an aircraft.” On the side is a faded hammer and sickle and Cyrillic letters that spell Siren. Ryan teams up with Navy divers, and they look for a way to safely enter and explore the object. They discover that the underwater contraption has thermonuclear warheads attached, left and long forgotten by the USSR. If the warheads explode, they could still achieve their apparent purpose—to trigger a tsunami and destroy Guam, which is strategically important to the U.S. The Chinese know it too, and the race is on to take control. The result is plenty of high-stakes undersea action, where death can come from a bullet, a knife, or a sliced air hose. But there’s action on land, too. Navy master diver Carla Bennett and Jack take on a surprise assault in a hotel where Carla shows off stellar fighting skills—better than Jack’s. These two aren’t the only heroes here, as there’s a well-balanced cast of characters, all brave and likable. And of course—of course—where there’s a bomb, there’s a ticking clock.
Nail-biting and pressure-packed.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9798217183166
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2026
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
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