A lively, roller-coaster thriller that moves like lightning.
With a CIA mother and an FBI son, espionage is all in the family—but could mom have betrayed her country?
While dreaming of her imminent training in the Negev Desert, new Israeli army recruit Maya Klein almost loses her life in a bombing raid from which Hal Cohen, a friend of her family's, rescues her. Halfway across the world, former CIA officer Helen Gray is on the trail of mysterious Donald Wilson. Her son, Devin, an FBI agent, is meanwhile guarding software engineer Brian Chase, who’s been led by his dire financial straits to be a decoy in an FBI “honey trap.” Insomniac agent Harvey Rudd worries that the team of “borderline retired” operatives he’s thrown together will be unable to complete their hostage rescue mission. Author Konkoly rolls out all these charged narrative threads, disconnected pieces of an oversized jigsaw puzzle, within the first 30 pages of his new cat-and-mouse thriller, then keeps readers engaged and guessing with brisk shifts of location and clarifying nuggets of information. Helen’s death rocks Devin’s world, but his sadness turns to skepticism when it’s ruled a suicide. Worse, she’s suspected of felonious and possibly treasonous activities. Even as Devin acknowledges his mother’s impulsiveness and attraction to danger, this is hard for him to believe. A post-mortem audio recording sets him on the road to the truth. He teams up with fighter pilot Marnie Young, an old pal, to enliven the story and unravel the tangled plot, which circles back to the Mideast.
A lively, roller-coaster thriller that moves like lightning.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2989-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.
When two women who share a birthday meet, a journalist becomes the subject of her own true-crime mystery.
On their 45th birthdays, Josie Fair and Alix Summer meet at a pub and discover they were born not only on the same day, but in the same hospital. Alix is a successful journalist, and Josie convinces Alix that her story is worth telling: Josie met her husband when she was 13 and he was 40. “I can see that maybe I was being used, that maybe I was even being groomed?” she confesses to Alix. “But that feeling of being powerful, right at the start, when I was still in control. I miss that sometimes. I really do. And what I’d like, more than anything, is to get it back.” From this premise Alix creates a Netflix series, Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin! which investigates Josie’s life as she reconciles what happened to her as a teen and seeks a new path. With the story unfinished, the narrative unfolds in the present tense, with prose that jingles like song lyrics: “He turns to see if the girl is behind him, and sees her wishy-washy, wavy-wavy, in double vision through the glass windows of the hotel.” Alix is both intrigued and repulsed by Josie, but she initially gives her the benefit of the doubt. After all, Alix’s husband, Nathan, has a drinking problem, and Alix knows what it’s like to be reluctant to leave a bad situation. But Josie seems more interested in being part of Alix’s seemingly glamorous life than she is in fixing her own, and when three people end up dead and Alix’s life is turned upside down, the evidence points to Josie—and turns the TV series into a murder mystery. Transcripts from Alix’s interviews alternate with the narrative, offering increasingly varied perspectives on Josie’s story as told by her neighbors, friends, and family members. With so many versions of events, the ending shatters, leaving readers to decide whose is the truth.
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781982179007
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
A fever dream about despair and regret that will stay with you long after the credits have rolled.
When an unreleased cult movie is rebooted, the surviving member of the original film’s crew grapples with psychic whiplash.
Even though it’s not steeped in horror lore like the bangers being cranked out by Stephen Graham Jones or Grady Hendrix, this captivating take is tailor-made for fans of Stephen King and Jordan Peele alike. A cautionary tale with elements of indie movie darlings The Blair Witch Project, Blue Velvet, and River’s Edge, this chronicle of hometown kids trying to make a cheap slasher flick is shockingly memorable and deeply disturbing. Our unnamed narrator is the last survivor of the eponymous movie, filmed in the summer of 1993. Their Horror Movie concerns teens who torture one of their own—the narrator’s role is that of the Thin Kid, akin to the Slender Man of urban legend—and suffer the consequences. In the mix are the film’s obsessive director, Valentina; a handful of cast and crew; and the film’s ethereal screenwriter, Cleo, whose presence is most fully felt within the pages of her unusually personal screenplay. After a bewildering tragedy, the film was never released. Decades later, Valentina uploads a few scenes, some stills, and the screenplay to the internet, inspiring the modern-day reinvention. With his crewmates long dead by mostly natural causes, the narrator reluctantly agrees to capitalize on his infamy, eventually agreeing to participate in a hot horror reboot. Revolving between the original production and the big-budget reimagining, Tremblay deftly sidesteps genre tropes and easy laughs for a truly disturbing experience inside some very troubled heads. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s going to be a great movie,” cautions our Thin Kid. “You’re all going to see it. Most of you are really going to like it.…Will the movie be something you take with you, that stays with you, burrows into and lives in a corner inside you? That, I don’t know.”
A fever dream about despair and regret that will stay with you long after the credits have rolled.Pub Date: June 11, 2024
ISBN: 9780063070011
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
© Copyright 2025 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.
