Assured writing, a locomotive plot, and nonstop suspenseful action create a heady combination in a series that shows no...
A sequel delivers a search-and-rescue tale in the Peruvian mountains.
Kirkeby’s (Red Stick One, 2014, etc.) novel catches readers up with Virgil Cleary, the main character from the author’s dynamic previous work, who, as a 38-year-old cattle farmer, doggedly supports his family of four with his wife, Michelle. Twelve-year-old Tom is eager to walk in his father’s footsteps by learning to shoot a shotgun and hunt for predatory mountain lions that are decimating Virgil’s herd. But fate intervenes with an offer the farmer cannot refuse. Recalling Virgil’s uncanny talent for searching out killers on the run years ago, a former intelligence chief offers him $100,000 to discover the whereabouts of a U.S. civilian being held captive by a band of South American “rebel jerks.” Despite his wife’s foreboding, he agrees to be immediately dispatched to the foothills of the Andes, where, with special agent Richard Creole, he quickly surveils the Peruvian terrain in search of The Shining Path. This rogue group of violent guerrillas plots to incrementally overturn the government by holding American engineer Paul Vogel either for ransom or as a bargaining chip. Equipped with false identification, Virgil soon becomes accustomed to the high-altitude exhaustion and heads off to sleuth out his target. Kirkeby’s talent for riveting suspense shifts into high gear once Virgil hits the ground running, assisted by young native guide Apolonio. They follow slim leads, dodge bullets and explosions, and outsmart their cutthroat opponents. Atmospheric, adventuresome, and layered with danger and palpable, twisting high tension, the story builds up to several narrative plateaus only to continue ratcheting up the excitement and the jeopardy that Virgil’s increasingly dirty job has embroiled him in. Vogel’s plight as a terrorist kidnap victim forced to spew prepared propaganda statements is also given heft in the multifaceted tale, adding more dimensions and balance to the plot. The author draws on the most enticing sections of his preceding novel and rejuvenates them in this rousing follow-up that will surely have suspense fans on the edges of their seats. Readers would do well to read the first volume of the series to familiarize themselves with Kirkeby’s cunning, resilient protagonist, who is even more engaging and thrilling to follow in this impressive successor.
Assured writing, a locomotive plot, and nonstop suspenseful action create a heady combination in a series that shows no signs of slowing down.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2017
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
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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