An effective and suspenseful novel despite its clichéd scenario.
Ex–Special Forces operative John Tyler uses his skills to protect an endangered pop star in Fowler’s third installment in his thriller series.
The story opens with Tyler, an Army veteran, about to begin a longed-for career as an antique car mechanic. The name he gives to his fledgling car shop, Special Operations Classic Car Repair, is a nod to his time as a Green Beret, and it also hints at his undiminished hankering for the thrills he experienced during those glory days. So, when Tyler’s former boss, Cliff, presents him with the opportunity to complete a “simple protection detail” for up-and-coming singer Alex Anne, it doesn’t take Tyler long to rationalize his decision to take the gig: “On the off chance the job provided any excitement, he could use it. The money wouldn’t hurt, either.” After just a few days of keeping close tabs on the young musician, Tyler’s job turns into a missing person operation, as Alex is kidnapped by an international ring of human traffickers. He decides to take on the rescue operation solo, and, using his tactical training, he soon finds that the mission has an unexpected connection to his own time in the military. The rescue makes for an exhilarating, if somewhat predictable, narrative pitting a heroic American veteran against a sinister Middle Eastern antagonist in an effort to liberate damsels in distress. What makes this fast-paced workstand out, though, is its emphasis on the trauma that arises from combat. Fowler makes it clear that Tyler suffers from PTSD, and he also equips his hero with the wisdom to offer comfort and advice, illustrating that he’s not just about steely bravado: “Talk to someone. A professional,” he says to another character after she goes through a trauma of her own. “You’re going to need to deal with this, or it’ll eat you alive.”
An effective and suspenseful novel despite its clichéd scenario.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-953603-39-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: manuscript
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.
The 25th novel featuring Silva’s legendary protagonist.
During his intersecting careers as art restorer and Israeli spy, Gabriel Allon has tangled with Russian gangsters and al-Qaida terrorists. He has become well-acquainted with operatives in multiple security agencies and befriended a paid assassin. He has busted art thieves and created passable forgeries by Renaissance masters and abstract Modernists. This latest installment centers around his relationship with the pope and a newly discovered painting by Leonardo da Vinci that has gone missing from the Vatican. Silva’s novels tend to fall into two categories: books that reflect the politics of the day and books that don’t. His latest is one of the latter, which could be a treat for readers looking for escape, but it falls flat for a variety of reasons. Luxury has always been part of Gabriel Allon’s universe. It used to be an aspect of tradecraft, though. Allon would be wearing a very expensive suit and driving a very expensive car because he was posing as a client at a Swiss bank. Here, his wife is hosting a catered lunch for 150 of their daughter’s classmates in their apartment overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice. What once felt like a scintillating peek into the world of the obscenely wealthy now just feels…kind of obscene. Similarly, Allon goes chasing after a missing painting as a civilian—he retired from Mossad in Portrait of an Unknown Woman (2022)—the same way another man his age might buy a speedboat or get hair plugs. As the story progresses, the stakes are raised, but it’s hard to forget that Allon is now a middle-aged man pursuing a dangerous hobby, rather than a spymaster leading his intrepid team to prevent a disaster that will disrupt the global order.
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9780063384217
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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
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