NEW ARCADIA

In this novel, the daughter of a super-spy joins the Outfit, an elite clandestine organization, but it may not be a perfect fit.

Three months after leaving Princeton before completing her master’s degree in neuroscience, Alicia Yoder is immersed in training to be an agent in the Outfit, following in the footsteps of her adoptive father, Levi. He had rescued Alicia and her sisters from the streets and placed them with Grandma Yoder in a Philadelphia Amish farming community. She is at once plagued by self-doubts about her performance and haunted by a violent incident of which she has no memory. She is shocked to learn that she killed one of two intruders one night, an incident that the Outfit covered up: “If what she had seen of the Outfit was any indication, they were capable of far more than she had ever imagined.” She will find out just how much more when she is sent on a training mission with a senior agent to Taiwan. The assignment is to find out what is hidden at a secretive facility called New Arcadia and why the Chinese would risk destabilizing relations with America and starting World War III to obtain it. From The Manchurian Candidate–style memory implantation and cool mission names like Dragon’s Breath Protocol to self-destructing briefcases, this story skillfully evokes 007 and the Mission: Impossible franchise. Alicia makes a memorable first impression (she bests her fellow agents in a challenge involving a WALL-E–type robot), and between her abilities and self-doubts, she engenders a strong rooting interest. Her memory lapse is something of a nonstarter in the context of this tale (The protagonist was introduced in Rothman's 2022 book, Multiverse, which is excerpted at the end of this work, along with a preview of the next Alicia Yoder novel, Operation Thrall). And the writing could be sharper (the phrase “the world grew dark” is used twice to diminishing effect). But this Crichton-esque techno-thriller efficiently blends international intrigue and spy action with science elements.

This auspicious tale’s intriguing hero has the potential to shake up the techno-thriller genre.