Continent hopping, clandestine meetings, cruelty, and cuddles—and that’s only the C’s.
An experienced, cynical CIA investigator faces many changes: a replacement boss, a new partner, a reunited lover, and a London assignment, which turns deadly.
In this sequel, blunt CIA investigator Dennis Cunningham meets his new, young-looking boss, Louise Nordland, and asks, “So how old are you then?” His fresh assignment: investigate the disappearance of Richard Arnold, a veteran of the agency and its deputy chief of station in London. The House Intelligence Committee chairman requests that Dennis search for Arnold, rumored to have been taken by Islamic terrorists. The agent is paired with paunchy, affable Fred Kaczka, a member of the National Security Agency’s Inspector General’s Office. The pair travels to London to track down Arnold and probe a possible Russian connection. Also jetting there is Judy White, the Australian policewoman whom Dennis wooed while on assignment Down Under in the thriller series’ previous volume. When reunited with her blue-eyed Yank, White reveals a new sun tattoo at the base of her spine. “Just thought I’d be daring. I lead such a dull life,” the divorced single mother explains. But their pleasurable reunion is short-lived. White vanishes while jogging through London. Is her disappearance payback for Dennis’ digging into Arnold’s disappearance? Or was she kidnapped in connection with an Australian case? Ultimately, can she be found alive, as police have discovered graves holding limbless torsos that have had their tattoos removed by razors? Readers of Yocum’s (Color of Blood, 2015, etc.) first installment may feel that he relies too much on torture and hospital scenes, but those new to the series will be missing some backstory. For example, Dennis’ adult daughter, Beth, introduced in the first book, is not even given lip service here. Nevertheless, this taut and entertaining thriller benefits from fierce and quirky characters (Fred is a Henny Youngman aficionado), requisite twists, and intriguing relationships (Dennis and White predict early on that their London rendezvous will result in either a permanent sizzle or the final fizzle of their long-distance liaison). Yocum also delivers convincing dialogue (At one point, Dennis discusses moving to a new country: “I don’t have a job in Australia. I just started back to work here. I like what I do. What am I going to do there, play golf every day? I don’t play golf. Take photos of kangaroos?”).
Continent hopping, clandestine meetings, cruelty, and cuddles—and that’s only the C’s.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 417
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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