A spy tale that delivers several surprises but fails to capitalize on an intriguing premise.
A secret agent investigates a conspiracy theorist in this debut horror-tinged thriller.
Theory is a man: Elysium Theory, celebrated conspiracy theorist, television host, and functional alcoholic. The man with the unlikely name is mourning the loss of the love of his life, and his grief is manifesting itself in destructive ways—such as tricking his fans into leaping off a building so he can see how they fall through space. Theory’s production manager, Simeon White, is trying to keep his boss happy and out of prison, mostly in hopes that he will inherit Theory’s media empire when the host inevitably exits the stage. But the deaths have not escaped notice. Selena Black is a member of the Black Syndicate, a secret government-backed intelligence operation of nearly unlimited power. The Blacks raid Theory’s offices, capture Simeon, and blackmail him into turning against his boss. But Theory isn’t Selena’s only problem: Something has been murdering Black agents and leaving only their epidermal tissue behind. Whatever is sucking people out of their skins, the archives prove that it first struck 100 years earlier. The cases turn out to have more to do with each other than it immediately appears. Even stranger, it seems that Selena looks identical to the mysterious woman whom Theory is pining for. Carlos’ urgent prose teases out the tensions in every scene: “Selena depressed the button to the eleventh floor. She started to get a bit nervous; something was off. Maybe it was her own behavior. This was just uncharacteristic of her and went against every Black Syndicate protocol. Selena was operating without a safety net.” The novel offers some fun twists and turns. But it suffers from a cast of characters who will fail to stir much emotion in readers. None are sympathetic, and some—including Theory—are quite abominable. The author sets him up to be something between Alex Jones and Julian Assange, but he lacks such specificity. Even more problematically, everyone speaks and thinks in action-movie clichés, as in this passage focusing on Selena: “There was one problem: she hadn’t planned on falling in love. It wasn’t part of the mission parameters.” The result is pure pulp.
A spy tale that delivers several surprises but fails to capitalize on an intriguing premise.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-66988-5
Page Count: 199
Publisher: MACHIAVELLI PRODUCTIONS LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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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