The best of Woods’ recent thrillers, a primer on election rigging that plays to both Democrats’ recent alarm and...
A long-hidden safe turns out to contain enough material to juice the next half-dozen adventures of jet-setting lawyer Stone Barrington.
Mary Ann Bianchi Bacchetti, the ex-wife of Stone’s ex–NYPD partner Dino Bacchetti, who’s now the police commissioner, calls Stone because she needs to open an Excelsior safe she’s found in the library of her late father, reformed Mafioso Eduardo Bianchi, before turning the place over to its new buyer the next day. So Bob Cantor, Stone’s tech guru, locates Solomon Fink, at 104 one of the last surviving members of the Excelsior firm, who opens the safe during a brief break from his nursing home, to reveal a prodigious sum of cash, documents leading to even more millions, and some detailed files on some very dangerous criminals. Since much of the money is earmarked for Dino, it looks at first as if this will be nothing more than another exercise in unbridled consumer spending, as Dino and his current wife, Viv, race to rival the conspicuous consumption that’s marked Stone’s recent outings (Desperate Measures, 2018, etc.). But the file on Jack Thomas, ne Gianni Tommassini, promises more interesting developments, from his initial and predictably unsuccessful attempts to silence everyone who knows about the file to his deep-laid plans to help his son, Congressman Henry Thomas II, become president by running as an independent against Secretary of State Holly Barker, one of Stone’s many once and future lovers. Armed with a formidable bank of computers and a staff whose loyalty isn’t limited by inconvenient notions of personal morality, the Thomases are formidable opponents. But Stone, Dino, Holly, Bob Cantor, and even Solomon Fink, who returns for a closing bow, are fighting for truth, justice, and the American way.
The best of Woods’ recent thrillers, a primer on election rigging that plays to both Democrats’ recent alarm and Republicans’ attachment to the material perks of the good life.Pub Date: Dec. 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1925-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
Another well-crafted and enjoyable escape from reality. The Ryans just keep on saving the world.
The latest in the action-filled series of thrillers based on characters created by the late Tom Clancy (Oath of Office, 2018, etc.) and continued here by Maden.
Malign forces are trying to steal America’s vital secrets, which it keeps in the highly secure IC Cloud. Naturally, a security breach would be catastrophic. China is the biggest cybersecurity threat by far, and it may have American allies. Sen. Deborah Dixon, who wants President Jack Ryan’s job, says in a speech that “the future belongs to America and China,” and a Ryan aide speculates that she may be in league with the Chinese. Meanwhile, Jack Ryan Jr. is a financial analyst at Hendley Associates who is sent to Poland to see if there is a connection between China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Poland. In Warsaw, he is assigned a Polish assistant, Agent Liliana Pilecki. She’s good-looking, of course, and exceptionally brave. There’s an unrequited sexual tension between them that reflects especially well on Jack Jr. as a heck of a decent guy. Early on, his cancer-stricken friend, Cory, makes a deathbed request that Jack feels honor-bound to keep. “A man keeps his word,” he thinks, and he goes to heroic lengths to do so. Jack Ryan Jr. is definitely someone you want on your side, and not because he’s the president’s son. He is the quintessential good guy—tough, smart, honorable, unafraid. Handcuffed with his hands behind his back atop a Peruvian mountain and saying he needs to pee, he asks a captor for help. “If you’re nice, you can hold it for me,” he wisecracks. “Of course, you’ll have to use both hands.” Now that’s a red-blooded American. Author Maden’s style meshes perfectly with the classic Clancy yarns, with global action, struggle, suffering, and formidable foes who get what they deserve.
Another well-crafted and enjoyable escape from reality. The Ryans just keep on saving the world.Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-54169-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Graham Greene he's not. Not even John le Carre or Geoffrey Household. But Ken Follett is here with that particularly British tone of controlled, leisurely tension—you'll feel it on the very first page—that can transform a not-very-original spy plot into a sly gavotte that has you holding your breath as the dancers slowly come together. The familiar D-Day gimmick: only one man can ruin the secrecy of the Normandy landing—a top German undercover agent known as "The Needle" because of his deadly stiletto. But Follett immediately declares his independence from cliches: by luring us over to The Needle's point of view, forcing us to admire his ingenuity (even as he murders a harmless landlady and then his own confederate); by making three-dimensional fellows of the British intelligence men who must catch The Needle before he makes contact with a German submarine; and by dropping in the apparently extraneous story of a young, unhappy man and wife who've been living on an empty North Sea island ever since the husband lost his legs in a honeymoon car accident. Ah, but of course, we know that this couple will be linked to The Needle, and it's with satisfaction that we watch the spy being washed up, half dead, on that island in his attempt to reach a German ship. What then follows—the romance between The Needle and the lovestarved wife, their hideous and unwilling death-duel—is badly marred by explicit sex and explicit sentimentality that, like Follett's occasional anachronistic or heavyhanded fumbles, violate the tone and period feel. But perhaps it's just as well: if Follett's debut were flawless, he'd have nowhere to go. As it is, Eye of the Needle introduces a fresh if not especially distinctive voice in suspense—and is easily the best first novel in the espionage genre since The Day of the Jackal.
Pub Date: July 31, 1978
ISBN: 006074815X
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Arbor House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1978
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