A fine, gripping page-turner infused with a deep historical sensibility.
A Czech spy-chief battles the rising Nazi menace in this engrossing thriller.
Major František Moravec has no experience as a spy when he’s summoned to an important post in Czechoslovakia’s military intelligence branch. But he does have a shrewd mind, a self-effacing manner that hides a maverick streak, a disillusioned knowledge of human motives and, rarest of all in the low, dishonest decade of the 1930s, he has more than a shred of honor. While he struggles to navigate Prague’s cynical bureaucracy and whip his underlings into shape—including an amateur pornographer and an 83-year-old agent who refuses to file reports—he faces an intelligence nightmare: a surging Nazi Germany that is covertly manipulating German nationalist groups in the Sudetenland with an eye toward adding that Czech territory to the Reich. Moravec relies on a troubled asset, a German-Czech-American schoolteacher with a clouded past and a bitter grudge. And he has a whale—or maybe a piranha—of a nemesis in Gestapo chief Reinhardt Heydrich, the epitome of cunning, cruelty and corruption with a cold eye trained on the Sudetenland while fighting murderous turf battles with Hitler’s other satraps. (The scenes of Nazi factional infighting are a tour-de-force of blood-curdling fun.) This first installment of Xavier’s Moravec’s War series, based on real-life figures and events, has everything—subtle characters, a great hero, a mesmerizing villain, tense intrigue and action and stylish, psychologically acute prose. It’s also a rich evocation of pre-war Mitteleuropa, steeped in the atmospherics of high-society soirées, beer-hall rallies and train-station assignations amid a mood of encroaching, unstoppable tragedy. As Moravec strains to perceive the threats to his country despite the deepening gloom, Xavier’s tale reads like a John le Carré novel transposed to a geopolitical jungle that’s far grimmer than the Cold War.
A fine, gripping page-turner infused with a deep historical sensibility.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 636
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Yes, it’s formula. Yes, it’s not as gritty an exercise in swamp mayhem as Hiaasen, Buchanan, or Crews might turn in. But,...
“I started dreaming of getting rich, which, in Florida anyway, can lead to serious trouble”: another blockbuster in the making from Grisham (Rogue Lawyer, 2015, etc.), the ascended master of the legal procedural.
If justice is blind, it is also served, in theory, by incorruptible servants. Emphasize “in theory,” for as Grisham’s latest opens, judicial investigator Lacy Stoltz is confronted with the unpleasant possibility that a highly regarded judge may be on the take. The charge comes, discreetly, from a former lawyer–turned-jailbird-turned-lawyer again, who spins out a seemingly improbable tale of racketeering that weds the best elements of Gulf Coast society with the worst, from the brilliant legal minds of Tallahassee to some very unpleasant lads once styled as the Catfish Mafia, now reborn in an alt-version, the Coast Mafia. Lacy’s brief is to find out just how rotten the rotten judge is—and the answer is plenty. Naturally, this knowledge is not acquired without cost; the body count rises, bad things happen to good people, and for a time, at least, the villains get away with murder and more. Grisham has never been strong on characterization: Lacy, we learn, is content to be single, “to live alone, to sleep in the center of the bed, to clean up only after herself,” and so forth, but beyond that the reader doesn’t get much sense of what drives her to put herself in the way of flying bullets and sneering counsel: “His associate was Ian Archer, an unsmiling sort who refused to shake hands with anyone and reeked of surliness.” In laid-back Florida? Indeed, and in Grisham’s busy hands, a lot of players come and go, some fated to sleep with the manatees.
Yes, it’s formula. Yes, it’s not as gritty an exercise in swamp mayhem as Hiaasen, Buchanan, or Crews might turn in. But, like eating a junk burger, even though you probably shouldn’t, it’s plenty satisfying.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-385-54119-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
A promising page-turner from a poised newcomer who’s well worth keeping tabs on.
This doorstopper epic fantasy and trilogy opener was originally self-published in 2014.
The details that give this ingeniously plotted yarn its backbone emerge gradually—and are not always entirely clear. Twenty years ago, a war swept away and annihilated the tyrannical Augurs when their formidable magic inexplicably faltered. Their servants, the Gifted, whose lesser magic derives from Essence (Islington has an irritating habit of capitalizing things), were forcibly constrained to obey the Four Tenets, meaning they can no longer use their magic to cause harm even in self-defense. At a school-cum-sanctuary-cum-prison for the Gifted, three 16-year-old friends, Davian, Wirr, and Asha, face their final tests. Though an excellent student, Davian cannot use Essence and faces a cruel exile. He decides to abscond. Wirr believes Davian’s an Augur whose higher-order magic blocks his ability to channel Essence, and he insists on joining him. Ilseth Tenvar, a seemingly sympathetic Elder, gives Davian a mysterious magic box to guide his progress. The next morning Asha wakes to a nightmare of her own. On the road Davian encounters the strange, scarred Gifted Taeris Sarr, who three years ago saved his life (Davian doesn’t remember the incident) and supposedly was executed for his pains. In the far north an ancient evil stirs, while in a related development, Caeden wakes in a forest to find himself covered in blood and with no memory of anything. So, in time-honored fashion, nobody is what they seem to be, everybody has a secret agenda, and the key players all lack pivotal memories. And while there’s nothing much new here, Islington’s natural storytelling ability provides incessant plot twists and maintains a relentless pace. The characters have well-rounded personalities and don’t make decisions or errors merely to advance the plot, even if they all sound and act the same youngish age.
A promising page-turner from a poised newcomer who’s well worth keeping tabs on.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-27409-8
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
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