Stone’s most memorable reflection: “He had been too long without a woman.” Yeah, right.
New York attorney Stone Barrington fights to protect a sizable estate from a predatory claimant determined to grab it from whomever stands in his way.
When Stone’s secretary, Joan Robertson, introduces him to her aunt, Annetta Charles, whose attorney at Stone’s firm, Woodman & Weld, has just died, Stone thinks her request to revise her will is routine. And so it is, on paper. Annetta, who rose from a shady background to marry into her late husband’s serious money, wants to continue paying $100,000 a month into the trust fund of her stepson, Edwin Charles Jr., but to cut him off without a cent at her death—because she wants to discourage him from killing her for the nest egg. Eddie, a Yale Law graduate who’s never worked a day in his life, reacts to the news that his do-nothing lifestyle depends on his leaving his stepmother alone with predictable outrage and a series of pleasingly unpredictable countermeasures. He bursts into Stone’s home office in Turtle Bay; accosts him at dinner with his former partner, NYPD Commissioner Dino Bacchetti; and tells everyone who’ll listen that he’s Stone’s client. The lie becomes especially fraught when Annetta is shot to death and Eddie’s arrested for her murder. Apart from Stone’s forgettable flings with two women involved in very different ways with Eddie’s threats, Woods keeps his eye on the ball throughout, and though the suspense never exactly intensifies—Woods doesn’t do rising suspense—Stone’s pesky antagonist is so well matched with both his hero and the requirements of his plot that fans’ interest will never flag. As a bonus, Stone’s self-effacing secretary is rewarded with a leading role and other emoluments.
Stone’s most memorable reflection: “He had been too long without a woman.” Yeah, right.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-54000-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
A standout in the series.
The sixth adventure of Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon explores the mysteries of human consciousness, the demonic projects of the CIA, and the city of Prague.
“Ladies and gentlemen...we are about to experience a sea change in our understanding of how the brain works, the nature of consciousness, and in fact…the very nature of reality itself.” But first—Langdon’s in love! Brown’s devoted readers first met brilliant noetic scientist Katherine Solomon in The Lost Symbol (2009); she’s back as a serious girlfriend, engaging the committed bachelor in a way not seen before. The book opens with the pair in a luxurious suite at the Four Seasons in Prague. It’s the night after Katherine has delivered the lecture quoted above, setting the theme for the novel, which features a plethora of real-life cases and anomalies that seem to support the notion that human consciousness is not localized inside the human skull. Brown’s talent for assembling research is also evident in this novel’s alter ego as a guidebook to Prague, whose history and attractions are described in great and glowing detail. Whether you appreciate or skim past the innumerable info dumps on these and other topics (Jewish folklore fans—the Golem is in the house!), it goes without saying that concision is not a goal in the Dan Brown editing process. Speaking of editing, the nearly 700-page book is dedicated to Brown’s editor, who seems to appear as a character—to put it in the italicized form used for Brownian insight, Jason Kaufman must be Jonas Faukman! A major subplot involves the theft of Katherine’s manuscript from the secure servers of Penguin Random House; the delightful Faukman continues to spout witty wisecracks even when blindfolded and hogtied. There’s no shortage of action, derring-do, explosions, high-tech torture machines, attempted and successful murders, and opportunities for split-second, last-minute escapes; good thing Langdon, this aging symbology wonk, never misses swimming his morning laps. Readers who are not already dyed-in-the-wool Langdonites may find themselves echoing the prof’s own conclusion regarding the credibility of all this paranormal hoo-ha: At some point, skepticism itself becomes irrational.
A standout in the series.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780385546898
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
Hokey plot, good fun.
A business executive becomes an unjustly wanted man.
Walter Nash attends his estranged father Tiberius’ funeral, where Ty’s Army buddy, Shock, rips into him for not being the kind of man the Vietnam vet Ty was. Instead, Nash is the successful head of acquisitions for Sybaritic Investments, where he earns a handsome paycheck that supports his wife, Judith, and his teenage daughter, Maggie. An FBI agent approaches Nash after the funeral and asks him to be a mole in his company, because the feds consider chief executive Rhett Temple “a criminal consorting with some very dangerous people.” It’s “a chance to be a hero,” the agent says, while admitting that Nash’s personal and financial risks are immense. Indeed, readers soon find Temple and a cohort standing over a fresh corpse and wondering what to do with it. Temple is not an especially talented executive, and he frets that his hated father, the chairman of the board, will eventually replace him with Nash. (Father-son relationships are not glorified in this tale.) Temple is cartoonishly rotten. He answers to a mysterious woman in Asia, whom he rightly fears. He kills. He beds various women including Judith, whom he tries to turn against Nash. The story’s dramatic turn follows Maggie’s kidnapping, where Nash is wrongly accused. Believing Nash’s innocence, Shock helps him change completely with intense exercise, bulking up and tattooing his body, and learning how to fight and kill. Eventually he looks nothing like the dweeb who’d once taken up tennis instead of football, much to Ty’s undying disgust. Finding the victim and the kidnappers becomes his sole mission. As a child watching his father hunt, Nash could never have killed a living thing. But with his old life over—now he will kill, and he will take any risks necessary. His transformation is implausible, though at least he’s not green like the Incredible Hulk. Loose ends abound by the end as he ignores a plea to “not get on that damn plane,” so a sequel is a necessity.
Hokey plot, good fun.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781538757987
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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