An enjoyable political thriller despite its flaws.
In this thriller, an FBI agent and a former New York Police Department detective investigate a conspiracy to tamper with a presidential election.
In 2024, the United States is riven by partisan dispute, cleaved into two acrimonious and irreconcilable halves, a mutual contempt expressed in the presidential election pitting Democratic candidate Katie Crandall against Republican candidate Bob Lutz. The political left believes a Republican victory would replace democracy with fascism, while the political right interprets a Democratic victory as the death of American values. David Flynn had to take a job as a deputy sheriff in Hamilton County, Ohio, after being kicked off the NYPD for accidentally shooting a Black youth. He uncovers evidence of intentional voter fraud affecting the vote counts in the battleground states of Ohio and Georgia—interference that might have led to a tipping of the electoral scales to Crandall. Flynn teams up with beautiful FBI agent Marla Devereaux—with her “exotic almond-shaped eyes” and “cheekbones any aspiring fashion model would kill for”—to quietly investigate a crime that could send the nation spiraling into civil war. Thompson conjures a political drama as electrifying as it is plausible, one that illuminates the fragility of the electoral system as well as the nation’s fractured psyche. The deeper the pair digs, though, the more it seems like the fraud they’ve discovered is part of a deeper conspiracy, one that transcends internecine polarization. The relationship between Flynn and Devereaux is microcosmic of the country’s angry division at first—she expects him to be a “Trump-loving troglodyte”—as he’s a lifelong Republican, and she’s a liberal Black woman. Their eventual (and predictable) romantic entanglement seems to point toward the possibility of greater political harmony on the national stage: a hopeful note in Thompson’s otherwise bleak vision.
The plot is frantically paced—it has the feel of a cinematic thriller, packed with action and intrigue. Furthermore, the author keenly documents the ways in which a generally prosperous nation can still suffer badly under the weight of gathering division. Thompson’s writing style is the weakest aspect of the book—it is antiseptically bland. He occasionally indulges in a sort of condescending didacticism, one that purveys well-worn, obvious lessons. Here is Flynn’s turn at sermonizing: “A nation’s policies should be based on reality, however unpleasant or inconvenient, or those policies are doomed to fail. When the truth no longer matters, demagogues, opportunists, and ideologues are free to fill the void with whatever lies and false narratives serve their purpose—and that’s never good for a nation.” These preachy platitudes threaten to undermine the book as a whole, although luckily this sort of collapse is narrowly avoided. However, this is not the kind of political meditation one finds in a book like Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America (2004)—a brilliant work of historical hypothesis. Rather, Thompson offers a dramatic page-turner, an eventful (if uneven) thriller based on a thoroughly intelligent premise. If read in this light, this is an entertaining novel, and even a touch more than that. An enjoyable political thriller despite its flaws.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 9780990686255
Page Count: 252
Publisher: NorLightsPress
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
“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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