by Matthew FitzSimmons ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 13, 2018
As usual, FitzSimmons provides nonstop action and a high body count, though it’s hard to maintain a consistent rooting...
Portugal may be a paradise for some, but for soldier of fortune Gibson Vaughn and his mates, it turns out to be an exceptionally bad spot to hide out from the FBI.
The problem isn’t with Albufeira but with Baltasar Alves, the gang leader who’s imposed a “Pax Algarve” on the region by suppressing the worst kinds of crimes, organizing the others with ruthless efficiency, and conscientiously repaying favors. An unnamed debt he owes Gibson’s ex-boss George Abe has cast him as the long-term host of George, Gibson, ex–LAPD officer Dan Hendricks, and Jenn Charles, Gibson’s sometime squeeze, as they recuperate from their most recent injuries (Cold Harbor, 2017) and wait for the feds to lose interest in them. While they’re still waiting, somebody hijacks a shipment of drugs from one of Baltasar’s many subcontractors, seriously miffing his Mexican suppliers impatient for their money. Baltasar initially suspects the subcontractor, neophyte skipper João Luna, but there’s every chance the guilty party was someone closer to home, someone like trusted lieutenant Anibal Ferro, or Fernando Alves, the son who runs his father’s legal activities, or Luisa Mata, the niece who runs all the others. Soon after Baltasar insists that the very unwilling Gibson repay his hospitality by recovering his stash double-quick, Luisa leads Gibson to the hijacked drugs, which a fiendish plotter calling himself Dol5 (dolphin—get it? "You know how a five-dollar bill is called a 'fin'?") has booby-trapped, taking a page from Auric Goldfinger, so that he can threaten to blow them up without taking the trouble to actually steal them. An unexpected offer Dol5 makes Gibson complicates the pattern of thrust and counterthrust still further, and soon nearly everyone involved is engaged in negotiating and renegotiating deals with escalating stakes, unreliable allies, and murderous adversaries.
As usual, FitzSimmons provides nonstop action and a high body count, though it’s hard to maintain a consistent rooting interest when the ground is so constantly shifting beneath his stalwart hero’s feet.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5039-5164-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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by Blake Crouch ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 26, 2016
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
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A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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