The first in a planned new series for O’Connor (New Sins for Old Scores, 2017, etc.) has a complex plot filled with plenty...
A summons from a long-estranged brother dumps a secret agent into a world of trouble.
Jonathan Hunter Mallory had not seen his brother, Kevin, in more than 15 years, and when he arrives at their meeting place on the banks of the Shenandoah River in Virginia, he finds him under attack. Kevin manages to utter a few cryptic remarks about someone named Khalifah, Maya, and Baltimore, and then he dies from gunshot wounds. Jonathan gets nothing but hostile attitude from local detective David Bond and FBI Special Agent Victoria Bacarro, who's running a Joint Terrorism Task Force out of the small town of Winchester, Virginia—and who tells Jonathan that Kevin was a member of her team. They question his identity, why he hadn't seen his brother for so long, and why he didn't know about Kevin’s wife and adopted son. Mallory is a former CIA operative who is now a special consultant for Oscar LaRue, a legend in spook circles who's not pleased he left his Middle Eastern location to fly back to the U.S. Jonathan immediately realizes he has stepped into something big, but no matter the consequences, his feelings of guilt determine his course. He meets Kevin’s wife, Noor, a stunning Iranian, and their son, Sam, a troubled preteen. There's a small town nearby known as Sand Town because of its Muslim population, and Noor suggests the answer may lie there. While checking out an incomplete address found in Kevin’s pocket, Jonathan follows a young Middle Eastern man to a shopping mall—could this be Khalifah?—but is too late to prevent a bombing that kills hundreds. LaRue has other agents in the field but is happy to use Mallory as bait in his plan to find the masterminds who are planning more attacks to destabilize the United States. Jonathan stumbles over plenty of dead bodies, finds himself threatened from all sides, and is far from certain he can trust anyone in his quest to stop a horrific plot and find Kevin’s killer.
The first in a planned new series for O’Connor (New Sins for Old Scores, 2017, etc.) has a complex plot filled with plenty of action, but the lack of character development makes it hard to warm to his new protagonist.Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-60809-283-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Oceanview
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days...
In 1876, professor Edward Cope takes a group of students to the unforgiving American West to hunt for dinosaur fossils, and they make a tremendous discovery.
William Jason Tertullius Johnson, son of a shipbuilder and beneficiary of his father’s largess, isn’t doing very well at Yale when he makes a bet with his archrival (because every young man has one): accompany “the bone professor” Othniel Marsh to the West to dig for dinosaur fossils or pony up $1,000, but Marsh will only let Johnson join if he has a skill they can use. They need a photographer, so Johnson throws himself into the grueling task of learning photography, eventually becoming proficient. When Marsh and the team leave without him, he hitches a ride with another celebrated paleontologist, Marsh’s bitter rival, Edward Cope. Despite warnings about Indian activity, into the Judith badlands they go. It’s a harrowing trip: they weather everything from stampeding buffalo to back-breaking work, but it proves to be worth it after they discover the teeth of what looks to be a giant dinosaur, and it could be the discovery of the century if they can only get them back home safely. When the team gets separated while transporting the bones, Johnson finds himself in Deadwood and must find a way to get the bones home—and stay alive doing it. The manuscript for this novel was discovered in Crichton’s (Pirate Latitudes, 2009, etc.) archives by his wife, Sherri, and predates Jurassic Park (1990), but if readers are looking for the same experience, they may be disappointed: it’s strictly formulaic stuff. Famous folk like the Earp brothers make appearances, and Cope and Marsh, and the feud between them, were very real, although Johnson is the author’s own creation. Crichton takes a sympathetic view of American Indians and their plight, and his appreciation of the American West, and its harsh beauty, is obvious.
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days of American paleontology.Pub Date: May 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-247335-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.
Coulter’s treasured FBI agents take on two cases marked by danger and personal involvement.
Dillon Savitch and his wife, Lacey Sherlock, have special abilities that have served them well in law enforcement (Paradox, 2018, etc.). But that doesn't prevent Sherlock’s car from hitting a running man after having been struck by a speeding SUV that runs a red light. The runner, though clearly injured, continues on his way and disappears. Not so the SUV driver, a security engineer for the Bexholt Group, which has ties to government agencies. Sherlock’s own concussion causes memory loss so severe that she doesn’t recognize Savitch or remember their son, Sean. The whole incident seems more suspicious when a blood test from the splatter of the man Sherlock hit reveals that he’s Justice Cummings, an analyst for the CIA. The agency’s refusal to cooperate makes Savitch certain that Bexholt is involved in a deep-laid plot. Meanwhile, Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith is visiting friends who run a cafe in the touristy Virginia town of Gaffers Ridge. Hammersmith, who has psychic abilities, is taken aback when he hears in his mind a woman’s cry for help. Reporter Carson DeSilva, who came to the area to interview a Nobel Prize winner, also has psychic abilities, and she overhears the thoughts of Rafer Bodine, a young man who has apparently kidnapped and possibly murdered three teenage girls. Unluckily, she blurts out her thoughts, and she’s snatched and tied up in a cellar by Bodine. Bodine may be a killer, but he’s also the nephew of the sheriff and the son of the local bigwig. So the sheriff arrests Hammersmith and refuses to accept his FBI credentials. Bodine's mother has psychic powers strong enough to kill, but she meets her match in Hammersmith, DeSilva, Savitch, and Sherlock.
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9365-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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