Talwar’s thought-provoking mystery is set against the backdrop of war-torn Afghanistan.
Soon after Indian journalist Anzan arrives at Kabul’s Aram guesthouse, one of his fellow boarders, an American ostensibly working as a sports advisor to the Ministry of Youth, is killed by an explosion in his room. Anzan then uses his investigative skills to narrow down an international cast of suspects, including members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and learns exactly who this American is and why someone might want to kill him. Talwar is a superb storyteller who manages to conjure both the flavor of an expatriate community and the day-to-day life of Afghanis. He peoples his tale with a range of characters and shows the country’s array of spices, foods, clothing and expressions. Perhaps most impressive is the way the author twists the noir genre into a glorious multinational reflection of itself. Though a skillful and seasoned journalist, Anzan’s narration is politely cynical rather than hardball. His repartee is delivered, not in gritty wisecracks, but in an urbane but stilted English that doesn't exactly sound like Mickey Spillane: “I’ve done difficult assignments in dangerous places before, but when I thought of Afghanistan, I felt the secretions of fear line my stomach.” As with any good mystery, the plot thickens at every turn. While Anzan travels about Afghanistan speaking to various people, contradictory clues and hints arise. Initial suspects are discarded as new ones appear, until a sickening realization begins to dawn on him. In the end, his discoveries force him to make a decision that will define what type of man he is. More than murder set in a distant locale, the novel examines classic themes of love, loss, identity, friendship and the overarching effects of politics on the lives of ordinary people. This is self-publishing at its best, lending voice to a perspective that might otherwise be lost to more clichéd views of foreign culture. An intelligent thriller, perfect for readers who wish to immerse themselves in an exotic, dangerous land.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1466495463
Page Count: 234
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Middling for this stellar series, which makes it another must-read, preferably in one sitting.
Unbeknownst to each other, Wyoming Fish and Game Warden Joe Pickett and outlaw falconer Nate Romanowski embark on equally urgent pursuits that converge in a way neither of them suspects.
Nate, who’s been off the grid ever since his wife, Liv, was killed in a fire intended to kill him too in Three-Inch Teeth (2024), has sworn vengeance on murderous conspirator Axel Soledad. After shooting several of Soledad’s hirelings, he joins forces with his friend and fellow Special Forces vet Geronimo Jones, who’s tracked him down, to chase his quarry deep into the woods. Governor Spencer Rulon, meanwhile, has pressed Joe into service once again to find veteran hunting guide Spike Rankin and his new assistant, Mark Eisele, who just happens to be Rulon’s son-in-law. Although nobody’s heard from the men for two days, the governor doesn’t want his wife and daughter to know they’re missing, and that means not alerting the media or the local sheriff, who’s no fan of Rulon’s anyway. Readers who’ve already seen Rankin and Eisele overpowered and imprisoned by a mysterious crew they ran into while they were setting up for the elk hunting season will assume that Soledad is behind their kidnapping as well. But Box will keep everyone guessing about exactly how Soledad and the ragtag military cult he’s gathered around him plan to confront the military-industrial complex he’s persuaded them is a clear and present danger. You know you’re in for a wild ride when Joe, saying goodbye to Marybeth, his long-suffering wife, promises her, “I’ll do my job and not cross the line.”
Middling for this stellar series, which makes it another must-read, preferably in one sitting.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593851050
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
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