Great action in a colorful setting. This is fun!
The fifth Arliss Cutter thriller builds to breakneck speed over the Alaskan countryside.
Supreme Court Justice Charlotte Morehouse visits Alaska for a conference and is invited to stay and see some of the sights. “My idea of wild adventure is a foreign film with subtitles,” muses a nervous law clerk. “What if something were to happen?” As bad luck would have it, Russian mobster Maxim Volkov bears a deep grudge against the justice. “My plan is simple,” he says. “Kill the bitch judge who let my Nina die.” The veteran of Penal Colony Number 6 has earned his nickname, Kostolom—Bone Breaker—but now he’s dying and wants to avenge his ex-wife in the most public way possible. Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Arliss Cutter and Lola Teariki, his partner, are assigned to help protect Morehouse. The story reaches as far north as Utqiagvik, formerly Barrow, and is filled with local color to spark the imaginations of armchair travelers. Key to the action is the Alaska Railroad, which tourists normally ride to soak in hundreds of miles of magnificent scenery. Alas, the train is a confined space where the good, the bad, and the innocent have nowhere to go unless they jump off and risk death. Author Cameron is perhaps best known for his Tom Clancy novels, but the Arliss Cutter series looks equally good. Cameron himself was a U.S. marshal specializing in dignitary protection in the 1990s, eventually retiring as district chief in Alaska, giving him serious chops to write this appealing series. His hero, Arliss, is a sympathetic pro not given to smiles or trust, perhaps because of his brother Ethan’s death, which might have been murder. Ethan had also been married to the woman Arliss has loved since youth, so there are levels of pain. “I'm not in the trusting business,” he says. “I'm in the hunting-bad-men business.” The bad guys are a lot less nuanced—those Russki ruffians are flat-out evil as Volkov prepares his son to take over his criminal enterprise. But to kill Morehouse they'll have to get past some tough U.S. marshals.
Great action in a colorful setting. This is fun!Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 9781496737618
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.
Stephanie Plum’s 31st adventure shows that Trenton’s preeminent fugitive-apprehension agent still has plenty of tricks up her sleeve, and needs every one of them.
The current caseload for Stephanie and Lula—the ex-prostitute file clerk at her cousin Vincent Plum’s bail bonds company, who serves as her unflappable sidekick—begins with two “failures to appear.” Eugene Fleck is suspected of being Robin Hoodie, who robs from the rich and, yes, distributes the proceeds to the poor. Racketeer Bruno Jug, who’s missed his court date on charges of tax evasion, is also suspected of drugging and raping a 14-year-old. But neither of these fugitives can hold a candle to Zoran Djordjevic, aka Fang, a self-proclaimed vampire wanted in connection with the gruesome fate of his late wife and three other missing women. As usual, Stephanie’s personal life is just as helter-skelter as her professional life as a bounty hunter. She’s managed to get herself engaged both to Det. Joe Morelli, of the Trenton PD, and Ranger, a former Special Forces agent who runs a private security firm; she thinks she may be pregnant; and she’s willing to marry the father, whichever of her fiances that turns out to be. On top of it all, her nothingburger schoolmate Herbert Slovinski suddenly pops up at one of the funerals she ferries her Grandma Mazur to, hitting on her relentlessly and gilding his importunities by cleaning and painting her shabby apartment and laying new carpet. Luckily, Lula’s on hand to offer cupcakes that stave off the worst disasters, and whenever this hodgepodge threatens to slow down, another FTA appears, or fails to appear.
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781668003138
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
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