An exhilarating spy novel that offers equal amounts of ingenuity and intrigue.
In Bond’s (Killing Maine, 2015, etc.) latest thriller, an intelligence operative spends decades immersed in America’s struggle with Islamic terrorists.
Jack is on a CIA mission in Afghanistan in 1982 to aid the Afghan opposition to Soviet invaders. But he has a personal investment, too: under his previous cover as a Peace Corps volunteer, he’d taught kids at a local village and became a blood brother to teacher Ahmad. The Americans supply the Afghans with missiles to take down Soviet helicopters, but later, after alliances shift, the CIA works to prevent a truce between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan. When the Islamic Jihad terrorist group bombs the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, the agency sends Jack to Lebanon to gather intel. What he learns is staggering: the bombing was reputedly in retaliation for the American bombardment of Beirut villages—which was itself retribution for the terrorist bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon earlier that year. As the years pass, Jack gets involved with Sophie Dassault, who’d saved his life while she was working for Doctors without Borders. But he can’t escape the cycle of violence; in 1986, he travels to Paris to stop an Algerian terrorist that he’d once trained. The American government, meanwhile, may be helping certain terrorist groups by allowing them to thrive unchecked. Bond’s epic novel is packed with historical references, including a mention of Osama bin Laden long before the events of 9/11; an opening prologue set in 2015 ensures that the narrative spans more than 30 years. Overall, the story maintains a provocative, intelligent tone rather than indulging in garish conspiracies—despite its allusions to nefarious deeds by various presidential administrations. Jack himself is the true focus of the narrative, and Bond shows how he blames himself for the violence as much as he does the higher-ups; he sums it up best by saying, “We’re just boys playing war.” Other characters, from a Soviet officer to an Afghan warlord (who’s also Ahmad’s brother), provide perspective and steer the plot clear of easy definitions of good and evil. There’s also profundity at times, especially regarding the futility of vengeance; at one point, Jack even suggests that truly avenging someone is an impossible feat.
An exhilarating spy novel that offers equal amounts of ingenuity and intrigue.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62704-035-8
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Mandevilla Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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