A once-great Scandinavian noir series now produces more yawns than spills and thrills.
Lisbeth Salander is back. She’s cold, lethal, and remorseless—and that’s on her good days.
“Vigilance comes as naturally to Lisbeth as eating, shitting and sleeping.” So writes Smirnoff, picking up the posthumous Stieg Larsson franchise where David Lagercrantz left off. Normally glued to a computer, Lisbeth is up in the woodsy far north of Sweden. Bad doings, naturally, are afoot, most caused by what’s surely the only thalidomide-baby villain in literary history. Using a wheelchair doesn’t keep our bad guy from dastardly deeds. For one, he’s trying to steal the Arctic out from under its rightful owners so that he can put up wind turbine farms—though, as it happens, he really has a more combustible and internationally interdicted form of energy in mind. When not occupied with Lex Luthor–worthy schemes, our villain has a penchant for kidnapping youngsters, some to kill, some to rape, some to hold hostage. Lisbeth’s on the case for a couple of reasons, not least connecting with a niece, daughter of the brother she snuffed a few books back. (“Did you kill him?” asks the young niece. “In a way,” Lisbeth answers.) Another is to help intrepid Larsson stand-in Mikael Blomkvist, who's at loose ends since his magazine Millennium folded. His sister and brother-in-law implicated by accident and by design in all these malevolent happenings, Blomkvist heads north to dig into the story, one punctuated by neo-Nazis, bikers, drug smugglers, and other such quotidian villains. Things turn ugly fast and stay that way; only the name-checked Greta Thunberg, it seems, has much chance of surviving once the hand grenades start flying. One decidedly bad but more mobile character memorably tosses the corpses of his victims out to be cleaned by sea eagles. One wonders whether the publishers aren’t doing the same thing, gnawing every last ounce of Larsson’s original to the bone.
A once-great Scandinavian noir series now produces more yawns than spills and thrills.Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2023
ISBN: 9780593536698
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
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
Plenty of excitement for Clancy fans.
Chinese president Li Jian Jun plans a sneak attack on Taiwan, and it’s up to the Jack Ryan administration to stop him without going to war.
President Li announces a naval exercise, but his real plan is Operation Sea Serpent, the lightning reunification of Taiwan. His minister of defense, Admiral Qin Hâiyû, thinks the idea is crazy because a great number of people would die, but he can’t say so. Li is not a man to be challenged, and he’s already had one of his ministers executed. But Qin wants to stop the war before it begins. Perhaps he can get word to the Americans so they can cut off the mad scheme, and he’s troubled by whether his actions will make him a traitor or a patriot. A Western asset nicknamed the Spider helps facilitate his dangerous disappearance as he attempts to leave China, and authorities in Beijing don’t know if he’s been kidnapped or has defected. Meanwhile, the Ryan administration wants to get him safely extracted from mainland China. President Ryan orders that an American naval vessel will transit through the Strait of Taiwan, which the People’s Republic has blockaded. Will there be a bloody showdown that triggers a major war? So much can go wrong, and there are series regulars like John Clark and Ding Chavez at the tip of the spear. And there’s also Katie Ryan, a lieutenant commander with the Office of Naval Intelligence who’s deployed to Taiwan because she’s “one hell of an intelligence analyst” who “thinks outside the box.” She’s a “rising star” who refuses to trade on her relationship with her father, President Ryan. There’s not much violence, although there’s enough to call it a military thriller. One brave American is fading fast from a round to his chest, but he has time to smile about that “hot” Katie Ryan. (Yes, yes, we all like the Ryans.) The novel’s big question is not which nation wins, but whether they fight. Bravery and clear thinking will have to come from both sides. By the way, Jack Junior isn’t in this one—it’s Katie’s time to shine.
Plenty of excitement for Clancy fans.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593717974
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
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