A solid series starter that never flags in its sprint to a sinister climax.
An insurance investigator is the only thing standing between a high-powered law firm and its billion-dollar payday in Hemming’s thriller.
Nick Martin is the team leader on his prestigious Boston law firm’s Prosperity Fund initiative, which uses money from investors to buy people’s life insurance policies. Just as the Prosperity Fund stands on the verge of a billion-dollar listing on the New York Stock Exchange, Nick’s colleague (and lover) Jennifer Rose discovers that the fund is not in compliance with an obscure piece of federal legislation, rendering the sales of the life insurance policies to the fund invalid. This development sets him on a collision course with Mihkel Ivanov, a partner at the firm whose clients include KGB members and who is “notorious for his bad manners and ill-temper.” Some of the desperate people who sold their life insurance policies begin meeting untimely deaths, as do people within the firm who question the fund or want out. Nick and the fund come to the attention of Alex Greene, a Paris-based insurance investigator, described by her 13-year-old niece Hanna as “Nancy Drew on steroids.” The Prosperity case puts Alex in the crosshairs: a contract on her life is assigned to Joshua Workman, a former Mossad agent, who just happens to be a former one-night stand. In Hemming’s debut thriller, Greene makes a strong first impression. She’s a formidable action hero who feels her best when pummeling an adversary and who has a zest for sex to rival James Bond’s (“She could say ‘let’s fuck’ in any language”). Hemmings efficiently establishes Greene’s world for future adventures, giving her a backstory that includes a long-missing sister who abandoned Hanna on her doorstep. The author neglects to follow through on an early scene in which Greene trains Hanna in self-defense—the reader will want to see Hanna use those skills. But the ending is a corker that sets up a much-anticipated sequel.
A solid series starter that never flags in its sprint to a sinister climax.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2022
ISBN: 9781738736829
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ice Queen Press
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 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
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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