A grand postwar adventure that’s dramatic, flashy, and pleasantly offbeat.
A skilled assassin tries to rescue British troops being held by a sadistic baron after World War I in Harries’ latest installment of his Tales of the Sica thriller series.
In 1920, Leon Harries is one of the best professional killers the British secret service has; he’s descended from a clan of assassins whose history goes back 2,000 years, and he knows his talents are incomparable. Capt. Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, chief of the foreign branch of the British Secret Intelligence Bureau, has an important mission for him. The Great War has ended, Europe is in disarray, and the dastardly Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg has kidnapped and taken control of a group of British soldiers. As the captain tells Leon, “We are talking about a man with the ability to rise from the depths of depravity and land on a level of deviancy and debauchery that hasn’t fouled the earth since Attila the Hun.” Leon would rather call it a day and pass his prized sica, or dagger, on to another family member, but the British need their boys back, and the baron is planning on invading Mongolia. Enter Countess Catherine von Merenberg, granddaughter of Tsar Alexander II, who’s a skilled pilot. She flies Leon over Europe and Asia in 400-mile hops, dodging warlords and imminent doom, until they reach their target: the horrible baron. Harries’ historical adventure gets off to a slow start, with background information and cameos from real-life figures such as Winston Churchill filling too much space when a more streamlined approach to the complicated narrative would have worked much better. That said, the work delivers enough historical pomp and bombast to make the story engaging and, at times, hair-raising even as it remains fully grounded in the realities of a postwar world. Throughout, the author displays a notable knack for spinning a yarn, and his story of a just assassin in a world of power-hungry warriors is inventive and tirelessly imaginative.
A grand postwar adventure that’s dramatic, flashy, and pleasantly offbeat.Pub Date: April 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781950628186
Page Count: 281
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.
Stephanie Plum’s 31st adventure shows that Trenton’s preeminent fugitive-apprehension agent still has plenty of tricks up her sleeve, and needs every one of them.
The current caseload for Stephanie and Lula—the ex-prostitute file clerk at her cousin Vincent Plum’s bail bonds company, who serves as her unflappable sidekick—begins with two “failures to appear.” Eugene Fleck is suspected of being Robin Hoodie, who robs from the rich and, yes, distributes the proceeds to the poor. Racketeer Bruno Jug, who’s missed his court date on charges of tax evasion, is also suspected of drugging and raping a 14-year-old. But neither of these fugitives can hold a candle to Zoran Djordjevic, aka Fang, a self-proclaimed vampire wanted in connection with the gruesome fate of his late wife and three other missing women. As usual, Stephanie’s personal life is just as helter-skelter as her professional life as a bounty hunter. She’s managed to get herself engaged both to Det. Joe Morelli, of the Trenton PD, and Ranger, a former Special Forces agent who runs a private security firm; she thinks she may be pregnant; and she’s willing to marry the father, whichever of her fiances that turns out to be. On top of it all, her nothingburger schoolmate Herbert Slovinski suddenly pops up at one of the funerals she ferries her Grandma Mazur to, hitting on her relentlessly and gilding his importunities by cleaning and painting her shabby apartment and laying new carpet. Luckily, Lula’s on hand to offer cupcakes that stave off the worst disasters, and whenever this hodgepodge threatens to slow down, another FTA appears, or fails to appear.
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781668003138
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 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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