A tale of espionage and political intrigue that invites incredulity and, finally, indifference.
After surviving an assassination attempt, an American senator investigates an imminent terrorist attack on the nation in Kent’s thriller.
Nate Tourneur, a senator representing Rhode Island, takes a much-needed break from his hectic schedule by going sailing in Martha’s Vineyard. While there, he’s enchanted by a beautiful stranger, Sarita Montoya, an entertainer from Puerto Rico, and their flirtatious conversation continues back at Nate’s hotel room. When he wakes, he finds her dead, and later her body simply vanishes; his situation shifts “from tragic to a miasma of intrigue.” When he finds a small microphone in his room, he anxiously frets that she was part of a blackmailing scheme. Later, while sailing, he’s attacked by a sniper in a helicopter. In a scene so ludicrously implausible it will elicit more guffaws than thrills, Nate manages to survive both gunfire and a launched rocket and successfully downs the helicopter. While discussing the incident with various intelligence agencies, he recalls a peculiar poem Sarita recited that emphasized the words “imposing encounter,” which turns out to be a code for an imminent attack against the United States, likely aided by Iran. Nate decides to conduct an investigation of his own, and, accompanied by FBI agent Pilar Cruz, he flies to Puerto Rico in search of information about Sarita. The duo discovers that Sarita had ties to the PDL, a shady outfit that specializes in organ donation run by David Rashidani, an Iranian who served in the Revolutionary Guard.
The author intelligently pieces together a complex plot against the U.S., one that possibly includes a devastating biochemical assault. The great virtue of the story is its impressive unpredictability, which allows Kent to build an atmosphere of suspense and chilling expectancy. But too much of the plot is entirely unbelievable, as is the novel’s protagonist, who seems like a pastiche of action-movie characters played by Harrison Ford. Nate is a 41-year-old former Naval intelligence officer and star athlete, perfectly capable of physically fending off assassins with cheerful aplomb. He relentlessly makes light of his terrible predicament by bombarding his interlocutors with clever quips—to his great fortune, they all respond in kind. When tackled to the ground by an FBI agent tasked with bringing him in—Nate didn’t realize his pursuers were FBI agents and was running away—this exchange occurs: “‘Are you a terrorist from Texas?’ I say. ‘San Antonio,’ says the leader of the pack. ‘You set me in a horn-tossing mood.’ … ‘I won’t apologize,’ I say. ‘You’re lucky to be alive, jumping through those trains.’ ‘When you’ve chased jackrabbits on the prairie, you don’t need breakfast to catch a man.’” No one talks like this, certainly not under conditions of such duress and fear. Unfortunately, this exchange is exemplary of all the dialogue in the novel. Readers will be entirely engrossed by the first 50 pages of Kent’s political thriller, but the remainder offers only diminishing returns.
A tale of espionage and political intrigue that invites incredulity and, finally, indifference.Pub Date: June 20, 2024
ISBN: 9798886795813
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Luminare Press
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
It’s just as exhausting as it sounds, but it may be the most ambitious spy novel you’ve ever read.
What happens when an eminent mystery novelist collaborates with an award-winning journalist on a spy thriller? Pretty much everything you can imagine.
While food blogger Alice Li is in retreat from her overbearing mother, famous Chinese dissident Vivien Li, in a restaurant bathroom, the alarm goes off. And not just the fire alarm, but every alarm in the city, the country, and around the world. Their triggering is clearly an act of terrorism, and the silencing of all those alarms, which comes as suddenly and inexplicably as their screeching, is anything but reassuring. Vivien spirits her daughter off to the White House, where Grant McAllister, the director of National Intelligence, informs Alice that her friend and fellow blogger Liam Palmer has just been fished from the Hong Kong harbor. McAllister and Alan Zhou, head of the China Mission Center, are convinced Liam knew something about those alarms, and President Fraser Pardington is determined to do whatever he can to prevent a sequel. He fails, of course, and the second act of global terrorism is even more disastrous than the first. All the president’s men and women initially believe the threat comes from the Chinese government, and Chinese President Chen Jiayang thinks the Americans might be behind it. Alice and Vivien race around the globe to track down the culprit, and what they find will knit together the fates of Alice’s family, the U.S. and China, and the history of the world as we know it.
It’s just as exhausting as it sounds, but it may be the most ambitious spy novel you’ve ever read.Pub Date: May 12, 2026
ISBN: 9781250412522
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.
On the isle of Capri, Helen Lingate seeks revenge on the people responsible for her mother’s death 30 years earlier—her own family.
When Sarah Lingate fell to her death on Capri in 1992, she left behind a 3-year-old daughter, Helen, and a legacy as a gifted playwright; her favorite necklace of golden snakes was lost to the sea. Thirty years later, Helen, chafing at the restrictions she’s grown up under as a member of the old-money Lingate family, hatches a plan with her uncle Marcus’ assistant, Lorna Moreno, to blackmail her uncle and her father with that same necklace, which mysteriously entered her possession a few months before. The novel begins on Capri just after Lorna disappears, and then traces her steps from 36 hours earlier. Interweaving chapters from the points of view of Helen, Lorna, and Sarah—as well as, later, a few others—we learn how Sarah gradually became stifled by the constant pressure of keeping up appearances until she became inspired to write a play, Saltwater, that was a not-so-thinly veiled tell-all revealing dark Lingate family secrets. It was shortly after this that she fell to her death. The loss of her mother has come to define Helen’s life, and if she can use the necklace as leverage to escape her family, and maybe learn the truth along the way, she’ll take the risk. Lorna’s motives are both murkier and more straightforward—she’s never had money, and she’s got a chip on her shoulder about it, so splitting 10 million euros with Helen sounds like a way to discard her past and start fresh. These strong, conniving women drive the drama and the narrative, and they are captivating enough that as twist after twist begins to unfurl, the novel still feels character-driven. The end—well, the end shocks. And it’s well earned. By the time the sun sets on the gorgeous excess and rugged coast of Capri, lives will have been destroyed.
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593875551
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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