A suspenseful crime story with deft plotting and a resourceful, well-developed protagonist.
A New York City detective races against time to stop a terrorist attack in Venice, Italy, in Ceron’s thriller.
Although this assured thriller is the author’s first full-length novel, he introduced its protagonist Miles in a previous novella, Death of the Saltwater Blonde (2022). Miles Jordan—“Detective First Grade New York Police Department, FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Officer, and Jamal’s Big & Tall Gold Star Customer”—is in Venice as part of a counterterrorism force partnering with the Italian military police. The mission: use captured sleeper agent Aarzam El-Hashem as bait to catch the elusive terrorist known as the Scorpion, assumed to be targeting the Israeli prime minister during the latter’s visit to the city in a few days. The task force’s plans go awry, and the arrogant, ambitious commander of the Venice Carabinieri, Col. Giuseppe Marino, blames Miles. However, the Scorpion sees Miles’ persistence and tendency to think outside the box as the real threats to him. Miles, who is Black, is about to be removed from the case by the American special agent in charge, a racist, “hardline good ol’ boy”; however, a clandestine meeting with a CIA operative opens new lines of inquiry and buys him more time. Ceron’s fast-paced, multilayered plot encompasses a meeting at the Roman Catholic Church archdiocese with an outspoken anti-Islam cardinal, a disturbing encounter with the leader of a shadowy organization of terrorist Catholic fanatics, and even a possible mole within the Carabinieri. The villains are a bit shallowly developed, but this is mitigated by the novel’s overall emotional resonance, particularly in the poignant tale of desperate father Nabeel Haddad, who unknowingly gets caught up in the lethal plot, and Miles’ burgeoning relationship with the haunted, Somalia-born Kamaria Uba of the Carabinieri.
A suspenseful crime story with deft plotting and a resourceful, well-developed protagonist.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2022
ISBN: 979-8986255415
Page Count: 354
Publisher: Gold Coast Press
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Red-hot storytelling.
Two master storytellers create one explosive thriller.
Mauna Loa is going to blow within days—“the biggest damn eruption in a century”—and John “Mac” MacGregor of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory leads a team trying to fend off catastrophe. Can they vent the volcano? Divert the flow of blistering hot lava? The city of Hilo is but a few miles down the hill from the world’s largest active volcano and will likely be in the path of a 15-foot-high wall of molten menace racing toward them at 50 miles an hour. “You live here, you always worry about the big one,” Mac says, and this could be it. There’s much more, though. The U.S. Army swoops in, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff personally “drafts” Mac into the Army. Then Mac learns the frightening secret of the Army’s special interest in Mauna Loa, and suddenly the stakes fly far, far beyond Hilo. Perhaps they can save the world, but the odds don’t look good. Readers will sympathize with Mac, who teaches surfing to troubled teens and for whom “taking chances is part of his damned genetic code.” But no one takes chances like the aerial cowboy Jake Rogers and the photographer who hires him to fly over the smoldering, burbling, rock-spitting hellhole. Some of the action scenes will make readers’ eyes pop as the tension continues to build. As with any good thriller, there’s a body count, but not all thrillers have blackened corpses surfing lava flows. The story is the brainchild of the late Crichton, who did a great deal of research but died in 2008 before he could finish the novel. His widow handed the project to James Patterson, who weaves Crichton’s work into a seamless summer read.
Red-hot storytelling.Pub Date: June 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780316565073
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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
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