A smart, layered spy thriller.
Dimodica (Covert Matters, 2015, etc.) crafts an intricately plotted spy game.
In 1999, Norris Stanton is a wealthy recluse and a survivor of the Nazi regime who now masterfully manipulates world currency markets. He also exploits Panama’s Colón Free Trade Zone and canal to make billions, then funnels all the profits to the Israeli Mossad. But as the official handoff of the canal from the United States to Panama approaches, Norris’ scheme is in jeopardy. He puts in a call to Tel Aviv for his marker, and the Mossad hatches a plot to destabilize Panama with a Serbian psychopath, who sets about forming a ragtag army of peasants to terrorize the country “for a taste of power, money, and a sense of belonging.” The goal is to lure the United States into an invasion to protect their ally and the all-important canal. When the CIA begins receiving reports from Panama of rape, torture, and murder by members of a new revolutionary movement, they send a “blind team” in country to do reconnaissance and report back. Dimodica, a former Special Forces and military intelligence operative, is good at setting the stage, and although the plot is complicated, it’s structured well enough to avoid confusion. However, the author’s habitual use of short, choppy paragraphs sometimes interferes with the narrative flow as the multinational narrative jumps from time zone to time zone. The pace is brisk and steady at the beginning, and again during the climax and denouement, but lags in the middle third; however, the ending is touching and satisfying. Dimodica’s characters are surprisingly well-developed for the genre and mostly portrayed sympathetically, with the exception of the monstrous Serb—but even he gets a back story revealing his motivations. Dimodica even waxes poetic at times: “Twilight is a time for artists, painters, photographers, and romantics. It is also the time of professional soldiers.” He also brings knowledge and experience to the story when depicting political machinations and explaining operational tactics, and he provides historical, cultural, and sociological context from the Oval Office to the Panamanian jungle.
A smart, layered spy thriller.Pub Date: April 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5301-4063-3
Page Count: 392
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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