A disturbing, eerily timed novel but no page-turner.
As a lethal virus of unknown origin ravages huge swaths of the planet, legendary American disease fighter Henry Parsons heads up increasingly hopeless attempts to control it.
The easily transmitted disease, which literally turns its victims blue, is first detected in a refugee camp in Indonesia, "hothouse of diseases." Sent there by the World Health Organization, Parsons quickly recognizes the dangers at hand but not quickly enough to prevent his infected local driver from leaving the camp to join some 3 million worshipers on the annual hajj. When attempts at quarantines in Mecca fail and the infected pilgrims return home, they carry the disease all over the globe. In light of the relatively few disease-related deaths in Russia, suspicions arise that the virus was bioengineered by Putin. The Russian leader, of course, blames America, where cities and institutions begin crumbling. After blood drips from the eyes of the president, midspeech, and the vice president is infected, the ill-prepared government is driven into an underground facility in Virginia. (CNN's Anderson Cooper apparently perishes but not Wolf Blitzer, who still commands The Situation Room.) Featuring accounts of past plagues and pandemics, descriptions of pathogens and how they work, and dark notes about global warming, the book produces deep shudders. Wright, author of acclaimed nonfiction such as The Looming Tower (2006), about the Sept. 11 attacks, knows his way around geopolitical terror, but he's less successful as a thriller writer, upstaged here by the recent, real-life coronavirus. There is little true suspense in the novel, which sketches in its nightmarish scenarios rather than dramatizing them. Even a suicide bombing has marginal impact. Ultimately, the book gets caught up in family drama, sentimentality, and end-of-the-world moralizing. An atheist since his missionary parents were killed in an air crash, Parsons rediscovers religion.
A disturbing, eerily timed novel but no page-turner.Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-65865-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
SEEN & HEARD
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
Another entertaining Aussie cozy for readers of Liane Moriarty—and fans of tough old ladies everywhere.
When her tabloid past comes back to haunt her, an 81-year-old Australian woman gets by with a little help from her friends.
When the neighbor child asks to interview her for a school project, Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick’s first line of defense is to shift little Persephone’s focus to another “old person” in their suburban Melbourne neighborhood, 93-year-old Ishaan Patel. Too late, says Persephone, he’s dead. This surprising information turns out to be true, as when she goes to check, Elsie finds the man sprawled lifeless on his kitchen floor. Her discovery of the body proves to be the first domino in a cascade of unwanted events, as her long-buried identity as Mad Mabel, the youngest convicted killer in Australian history, comes to light and creates a tidal wave of suspicion and media attention. Hepworth’s latest cozy domestic thriller uses the device of a YouTube documentary team determined to get Elsie/Mabel’s side of the story on the record for the first time, presented here in chapters alternating between Now and Then. In the present, cantankerous, sharp-tongued loner Elsie goes from having just one friend, the loyal Daphne Barton, to a web of close connections, including even a previously reviled dog she reluctantly inherits from the late Ishaan. In the past, a landslide of dead bodies and cruel twists of fate emerges to both justify and challenge the Mad Mabel moniker. If some aspects of the premise feel overfamiliar (cranky oldster’s frozen heart thawed by charming child), other elements are less well worn—a lovely pair of lesbians named Cess and Ness in the Then thread, for example. Those quirky suburban Australian neighborhoods just keep popping out the predators, bullies, shocking family secrets, and darkly charming surprises.
Another entertaining Aussie cozy for readers of Liane Moriarty—and fans of tough old ladies everywhere.Pub Date: April 21, 2026
ISBN: 9781250284549
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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