A space yarn filled with tension and excitement.
Great powers jockey for dominance in space.
Three unusually smart people play key roles in this cerebral, well-researched thriller. It’s relatively low-key, with none of the blood spatter and 12-letter profanities so common in the genre. In the 1990s, Russian Ivan Volkov studies aerospace engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing, where he learns from renowned professor Cao Lin and meets American grad student Edith Ryan. Volkov and Ryan (Psst! She’s CIA) become friends but not lovers, and they go their separate ways. Back home in Russia, Volkov, the most interesting of the main characters, is asked if he trusts his “new Chinese friends.” “I am a Russian,” he replies. “I don’t trust anyone.” His money-loving wife leaves him and their young son while he struggles to find a job that pays enough. “Don’t take Dimitry,” he begs her. “I don’t want Dimitry,” she tells him. “He reminds me of you.” Ouch. But he loves his son and raises him well. He also loves Russia, but he doesn’t love its corruption. Three decades later, the specter of war looms in space, with hints of vulnerabilities in the GPS system. The U.S. has dominated space for so long that Cao Lin believes it’s become complacent and can’t see its vulnerabilities. While much of our daily lives depends on GPS’s precision in commercial air and highway travel, it’s critical to Ukraine for pinpointing Russian targets on the battlefield. Thousands of miles up in space, one satellite might be able to reposition itself close to another country’s satellite and reprogram or disable it. This oversimplifies the threat described in detail in the novel, but that’s the drift. China, Russia, and the U.S. fear and mistrust each other, and they can cause huge problems on earth by dominating space with “killer satellites.” Volkov is asked if he can fix Russia’s satellite system, which is too “sloppy” and “imprecise.” “You need better clocks,” he replies, and the author does a good job explaining why. Ryan, Volkov, and Cao are all honorable characters with their own trajectories that reconnect in surprising fashion. Readers just might root for all three.
A space yarn filled with tension and excitement.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781324050919
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.
Following the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a struggling London novelist journeys to a remote Scottish island to try to get his mojo back—but all, of course, is not what it seems.
Grady Green hits the pinnacle of his publishing career on the same night that his life goes off the rails—first his book lands on the New York Times bestseller list, and then his wife, Abby, goes missing on her way home. A year later, Grady is a mere shadow of his former self: out of money and out of ideas. So, when his agent, Abby’s godmother, suggests that he spend some time on the Isle of Amberly, in a log cabin left to her by one of her writers, it seems as good a plan as any. With free housing for himself and his dog and a beautiful, distraction-free environment, maybe he can finally complete the next novel. But from the very beginning, Grady’s experiences with Amberly seem weird, if not downright ominous: As a visitor, he’s not allowed to bring his car onto the island; the local businesses are only open for a few hours at a time; and there are no birds. At all. Not to mention the skeletal hand he finds buried under the floorboards of the cabin, the creepy harmonica music in the woods, and the occasional sighting of a woman in a red coat who’s a dead ringer for Abby. As Grady falls deeper and deeper into insomnia and alcoholism, he begins to realize his being on the island is no accident—and that should make him very afraid. Through occasional chapters from before Abby’s disappearance, told from her point of view, we learn that Grady is not necessarily a reliable narrator, and the book’s slow unfolding of dread, mystery, and then truth is both creative and well-paced. Every chapter heading is an oxymoron, like the title, reminding us of the contradictions at the heart of every story.
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781250337788
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
A potent and surprising novel by the ever-reliable Crais.
Hired to find the father of celebrity “muffin girl” Traci Beller 10 years after his disappearance, PI Elvis Cole uncovers a nefarious plot that puts his life and those he contacts at risk.
The sweetly likable Traci, now 23, has amassed a huge following with her website, The Baker Next Door, and on social media. Against the advice and self-interest of the people who over-manage her career, she decides to find out what happened to her father. Cole quickly determines that he was last seen at the SurfMutt hamburger stand, where he gave a ride to Anya Given, a troubled 15-year-old whose mother, Sadie, was late in picking her up from the skate park across the street. With the reluctant help of a scattered young woman who used to work at the burger joint, Cole tracks down Anya and Sadie, who is eventually revealed to have a criminal past. For his efforts, he’s jumped by a small gang of men who send him to the hospital with the worst beating of his life. (Asked by a nurse what his name is, the best he can guess is “Los Angeles.”) Still in recovery, Cole and Joe Pike, his ex-Marine partner, trace his attackers to Sadie, with unexpected results. As ever, Crais draws the reader in via his protagonist’s casual, dryly humorous manner and the book’s relaxed ties to classic noir. Slowly but surely, the plot gains intensity and deadly purpose. Just when you think the missing persons case is solved, Crais ratchets things up with a devastating follow-through. This is the L.A. novelist’s 20th Cole mystery, following such efforts as The Watchman (2007) and Racing the Light (2022). It may be his most powerful.
A potent and surprising novel by the ever-reliable Crais.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780525535768
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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