The beginning of what could be a top-notch technothriller saga—entertaining and as thought-provoking as it is disturbingly...
The first installment in Michaels’ Aegis saga explores issues ripped from the headlines in a page-turner of a technothriller.
Alex Mercer’s childhood has been far from idyllic. Orphaned as a child in southeastern Europe and eventually landing in the U.S., she endured a horrific foster family experience before ending up with a couple living in the San Francisco Bay area, who’d recently emigrated from South Korea. Now 18 and a freshman in computer engineering at the University of Michigan, the hacker prodigy finds herself in a potentially deadly situation. Not only is she being blackmailed by a corrupt mayoral candidate who wants her to manipulate voting results, but a cyber terrorist, about to unleash a “digital plague” on the world, has her in his sights because of her online meddling. The cyber terrorist, nicknamed Cipher, obsesses over making America pay for their involvement in Bosnia decades earlier and the horrors they facilitated on the country’s populace, which included Cipher’s family. His ultimate goal is simple: “to see the world burn.” As Alex desperately tries to stop Cipher’s master plan before he kills her and those close to her, she begins to put together seemingly disparate puzzle pieces, some of which include an army of North Korean hackers, a top-secret branch of the U.S. Cyber Command, and jaw-dropping revelations about her biological parents.
There’s no question that Michaels delivers the goods to thriller fans. From the very first page, the pacing is pedal-to-the-metal, and the tension is palpable throughout. Alex’s paranoia bleeds through the pages: “Her attacker could be any of the people wandering the campus, searching for her. Ready to pull the trigger. Assuming they had a trigger. For all she knew, they’d dispatch her through more stealthy means like poison, or worse, a shiv wielded by a seemingly innocent passerby, the cold steel hidden beneath a benign smile.” But the real power here is Michaels’ character development. Alex’s complicated relationship with her foster parents and her revered Aunt Min—coupled with her own struggles to find herself and her place in the world—make her a three-dimensional, undeniably endearing hero. Additionally, there’s a subtle philosophical thread throughout, which gives the reading experience a profundity: “Hate exists not as a permanent scar upon the heart, but as a challenge, a call to action for each of us. It is an invitation to embark on the most noble of journeys: To reach out with an open heart, to listen with a compassionate ear, and to build, with the bricks of our shared humanity, a world where love triumphs over hate, understanding overcomes fear, and unity replaces division. This is the path to a brighter, kinder future—a world not of hate, but of hope.” Lastly, the author savvily leaves Alex, and other supporting characters, at a natural jumping-off point. Future installments could go in countless directions and be set anywhere in the world. The one minor criticism is that some plot twists are a bit predictable, especially for those who read a lot of thrillers. The beginning of what could be a top-notch technothriller saga—entertaining and as thought-provoking as it is disturbingly believable.Pub Date: May 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781958800171
Page Count: 420
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.
Second of the Walter Nash thrillers—following Nash Falls (2025)—in which the remade hero seeks vengeance.
Due to urgent circumstances, Nash has bulked himself up to become the “muscled and tatted fighting machine” now known as Dillon Hope. His antagonist is Victoria Steers, a global drug dealer who wants him dead. Not realizing his new identity, she enlists Hope to free her mother, Masuyo, from a prison in Myanmar. As an incentive, she shoots one of her associates and threatens to frame Hope for the murder unless he complies. She also wants him to find Nash. He in turn wants to kill Victoria to avenge the death of his innocent daughter, Maggie. “If I go down,” he muses, “I’m taking others with me. Starting with Victoria Steers.” He learns that Victoria had killed all her siblings to eliminate business competition. But as heartless as Victoria is, her mother, Masuyo, is even worse. In league with the Chinese government in a perverse plan to kill as many Americans as possible through fentanyl overdose, she shows contempt for Victoria for her perceived weaknesses. Readers won’t find many happy family relationships here: mother-daughter, father-son, husband-wife—all fraught. Hope’s employer, who accompanies him to Myanmar, is a billionaire chief executive with a dodgy past (i.e., probably killed his father). And there’s a mega-billionaire with an astronomical IQ and ditch-deep morals who, putting it mildly, does not have America’s best interests at heart. As a teenager, he’d defeated two world chess champions; as an adult, he regards his dealings with the world in terms of master chess moves. Only one character seems truly decent and credible—Hiroko, Victoria’s former nanny and lifelong companion, who provides Hope with valuable insights into the Steers’ background, which is partly Chinese. Searing grudges, simple evil, and not-so-simple misunderstandings carry the cast through this complex, action-packed plot. This sequel ties out the loose ends dangling in Nash Falls, which would be helpful to read first. To get to the requisite ending, though, Baldacci takes pains to surprise the reader. It works but often feels forced.
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781538758021
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
Yes, it has its playfully witty moments, but it’s a distinctly minor work in the author’s brainteasing canon.
Murder disrupts the filming of—what else?—The Word Is Murder, based on the first novel starring author Horowitz and his sometime partner, ex-copper Daniel Hawthorne.
With commendably dramatic timing, gofer Izzy Mays bursts into the middle of a pivotal shot on location at The Stade in Hastings to announce that Hawthorne’s been murdered. Of course, what she means (though Horowitz takes his time clarifying this ambiguity) is that David Caine, the rising star playing Hawthorne, has been fatally stabbed in the neck. Suspicion falls on James Aubrey, the agent Caine had just fired; Izzy, because Caine had caused her to be fired, too, though he ended up making his exit first; Ralph Seymour, the washed-up actor who’d returned from New Zealand to play Horowitz opposite Caine, his mortal enemy; and producer Teresa de León, who’s abruptly lost an important source of funding for the project; director Cy Truman; and screenwriter Shanika Harris, because why not? After Hawthorne builds meticulous hypothetical cases against several of these suspects, provoking Teresa’s apt rejoinder, “All those questions in the script and now you’re asking them for real,” he responds to Horowitz’s theory that he may have been the intended target after all by sharing a story from his early days as a private investigator in what ends up looking like the most elaborately extended red herring in the history of detective fiction. The two plots, past and present—or, to be more precise, past and present-day-adaptation-of-a-story-from-the-less-distant-past, are eventually woven together in ways only Horowitz’s most devoted fans will celebrate.
Yes, it has its playfully witty moments, but it’s a distinctly minor work in the author’s brainteasing canon.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9780063305748
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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