A strong second installment in a series we hope continues.
On a post-Putin mission to gather intel on a powerfully connected Russian oligarch in London, CIA agent Lyndsey Duncan guiltily befriends the man's lonely, woefully mistreated British wife.
In this sequel to Red Widow (2021), Duncan is sent by her American bosses to check on a troublesome asset/Russian war criminal. But no sooner does she arrive in the U.K. than she is summoned by her old MI6 flame, Davis Ranford. In spite of the trouble their fling got them into the last time they worked together, he urgently asks her to team up with him again. Her assignment is to infiltrate the world of billionaire oligarch Mikhail Rotenberg and uncover his hidden ties (financial and other) to the new Russian leader, Viktor Kosygin. Though Rotenberg poured millions into Putin's reckless campaign in Ukraine, he was instrumental in overthrowing him and installing Kosygin as Russian president following the costly war. Duncan has no problem cozying up to Rotenberg's wife, Emily, who sadly has bought into a miserable, abusive marriage she can't escape for fear of having her husband claim their two children. Lyndsey's increasing sympathy for Emily, for whom a betrayal by her new best friend likely would be a traumatic last straw, becomes a problem—especially when it appears that Lyndsey is making herself available to the loathsome oligarch. Katsu, a former intelligence officer, shows us how intelligence-gathering works, how spies relate to each other, how intelligence agencies uneasily coexist. What sets the novel apart even more is the smoothness with which the author builds her tense narrative and characters—Lyndsey is unflashy but sensitive and principled and good at what she does, while Emily is one of the most sympathetically drawn victims in recent spy fiction.
A strong second installment in a series we hope continues.Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-42195-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Fine Grisham storytelling that his fans will enjoy.
A descendant of enslaved people fights a Florida developer over the future of a small island.
In 1760, the slave ship Venus breaks apart in a storm on its way to Savannah, and only a few survivors, all Africans, find their way safely to a tiny barrier island between Florida and Georgia. For two centuries, only formerly enslaved people and their descendants live there. A curse on white people hangs over the island, and none who ever set foot on it survive. Its last resident was Lovely Jackson, who departed as a teen in 1955. Today—well, in 2020—a developer called Tidal Breeze wants Florida’s permission to “develop” Dark Isle, which sits within bridge-building distance from the well-established Camino Island. The plot is an easy setup for Grisham, big people vs. little people. Lovely’s revered ancestors are buried on Dark Isle, which Hurricane Leo devastated from end to end. Lovely claims the islet’s ownership despite not having formal title, and she wants white folks to leave the place alone. But apparently Florida doesn’t have enough casinos and golf courses to suit some people. Surely developers can buy off that little old Black lady with a half million bucks. No? How about a million? “I wish they’d stop offering money,” Lovely complains. “I ain’t for sale.” Thus a non-jury court trial begins to establish ownership. The story has no legal fireworks, just ordinary maneuvering. The real fun is in the backstory, in the portrayal of the aptly named Lovely, and the skittishness of white people to step on the island as long as the ancient curse remains. Lovely has self-published a history of the island, and a sympathetic white woman named Mercer Mann decides to write a nonfiction account as well. When that book ultimately comes out, reviewers for Kirkus (and others) “raved on and on.” Don’t expect stunning twists, though early on Dark Isle gives four white guys a stark message. The tension ends with the judge’s verdict, but the remaining 30 pages bring the story to a satisfying conclusion.
Fine Grisham storytelling that his fans will enjoy.Pub Date: May 28, 2024
ISBN: 9780385545990
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.
What should be a rare horror—a woman gone missing—becomes a pattern in Kubica's latest thriller.
One night, a young mother goes for a run. She never comes home. A few weeks later, the body of Meredith, another missing woman, is found with a self-inflicted knife wound; the only clue about the fate of her still-missing 6-year-old daughter, Delilah, is a note that reads, "You’ll never find her. Don’t even try." Eleven years later, a girl escapes from a basement where she’s been held captive and severely abused; she reports that she is Delilah. Kubica alternates between chapters in the present narrated by Delilah’s younger brother, Leo, now 15 and resentful of the hold Delilah’s disappearance and Meredith’s death have had on his father, and chapters from 11 years earlier, narrated by Meredith and her neighbor Kate. Meredith begins receiving texts that threaten to expose her and tear her life apart; she struggles to keep them, and her anxiety, from her family as she goes through the motions of teaching yoga and working as a doula. One client in particular worries her; Meredith fears her husband might be abusing her, and she's also unhappy with the way the woman’s obstetrician treats her. So this novel is both a mystery about what led to Meredith’s death and Delilah’s imprisonment and the story of what Delilah's return might mean to her family and all their well-meaning neighbors. Someone is not who they seem; someone has been keeping secrets for 11 long years. The chapters complement one another like a patchwork quilt, slowly revealing the rotten heart of a murderer amid a number of misdirections. The main problem: As it becomes clear whodunit, there’s no true groundwork laid for us to believe that this person would behave at all the way they do.
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-778-38944-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Park Row Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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