Brookes' third and possibly final novel to feature Philip Mangan sends the beaten-down rogue spy out in high style while...
Having abandoned people he cared about and compromised his humanity since becoming a spy, British journalist Philip Mangan finds a chance to redeem himself when he meets a Chinese-American teenager targeted by Beijing for her genius in the field of artificial intelligence.
Mangan crosses paths with the teen, Pearl Tao, in Suriname. He has traveled to the South American country from Indonesia in an attempt to hide from his MI6 superiors in London. Pearl's parents, who, unbeknownst to her, are Chinese spies, told her they were going to Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, on vacation. But they are there to make contact with Chinese sources to whom they have promised to deliver Pearl's research. Roughly treated by her untrustworthy, panicky father, she begins to fear for her well-being. Mangan first sees Pearl and her parents in the company of a local lawyer he suspects of having ties to Chinese military intelligence. After chatting with the girl, Mangan instinctively knows she needs his help. But first, he needs to convince her that he's on her side. With the murder—could it have been by MI6?—of an American agent specializing in Chinese affairs and the fatal poisoning of his wife, the plot thickens. Brookes (Spy Games, 2015, etc.) writes in his acknowledgments that this is the final chapter for Mangan, his manipulative London boss Val Hobko, and his troubled handler and one-time lover, Trish Patterson. If so, they'll be sorely missed. In the tradition of Graham Greene, the book is a work of deep moral reckoning and a gripping thriller. As affecting as the story is, the dominant emotion it evokes is fear. Having been shot at, beaten to a pulp, imprisoned, and betrayed in Brookes' trilogy, Mangan has reason to shake in anticipation of the next shock to his system. That Brookes makes the darkest challenges his spy faces utterly believable is a testament to his skill as a novelist.
Brookes' third and possibly final novel to feature Philip Mangan sends the beaten-down rogue spy out in high style while introducing a terrific new character in a teenager trapped in her own secretive life.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-50349-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Redhook/Orbit
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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