An uneven historical thriller that features a compelling central relationship.
A crime-fighting couple’s consuming love for each other is put to the test when they’re recruited to identify a global counterfeiter in Haddon’s sequel.
After husband-and-wife team Tommy and Hannah Sinclair break up a human trafficking ring and a drug-dealing operation, the FBI asks them to use their skills and talents for a new mission. An international counterfeiting organization of unknown origin has emerged in the United States, France, and Italy, and the pair must determine who’s behind it. Tommy has an eidetic memory, which will be useful when it comes to dealing with bank-note serial numbers, as well as a handy background as a gambler and Mafia associate. Hannah, 14 years his junior, is his able partner, but she’s not pleased that this new assignment may require him to seduce the counterfeiter’s vulnerable wife. “She’ll fall in love with you,” Hannah cries. “I won’t let that happen,” he responds. Hannah has a dangerous role to play in the undercover operation, as well, although she’s only recently recovered from injuries from the previous mission; she’s also wrestling with the psychological trauma of a miscarriage. Nonetheless, like Tommy, she’s ready to get back to work. Haddon dutifully fills in backstory for readers who may be unfamiliar with the first volume in this series, and the beginning passages will quickly hook them: “We haven’t heard from [the FBI] for over a year. The last time was when I shot Lord George Gillingham.” Tommy and Hannah are a disarmingly charming couple to find at the center of a tale of global intrigue. However, Haddon’s scene-setting is less skillful, as one never gets a sense of the era in which the story takes pace; indeed, it’s only in the author’s “Final Thoughts” that readers learn that the tale is set in the ’50s. Romance fans, however, will warm to Hannah’s intense devotion to Tommy and the couple’s passionate (and graphic) bouts of lovemaking; readers’ mileage may vary, though, when Tommy tells a willing Hannah, “I want to leave my mark on you so you won’t forget me while I am away.”
An uneven historical thriller that features a compelling central relationship.Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64628-819-9
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Tensile Press
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.
What should be a rare horror—a woman gone missing—becomes a pattern in Kubica's latest thriller.
One night, a young mother goes for a run. She never comes home. A few weeks later, the body of Meredith, another missing woman, is found with a self-inflicted knife wound; the only clue about the fate of her still-missing 6-year-old daughter, Delilah, is a note that reads, "You’ll never find her. Don’t even try." Eleven years later, a girl escapes from a basement where she’s been held captive and severely abused; she reports that she is Delilah. Kubica alternates between chapters in the present narrated by Delilah’s younger brother, Leo, now 15 and resentful of the hold Delilah’s disappearance and Meredith’s death have had on his father, and chapters from 11 years earlier, narrated by Meredith and her neighbor Kate. Meredith begins receiving texts that threaten to expose her and tear her life apart; she struggles to keep them, and her anxiety, from her family as she goes through the motions of teaching yoga and working as a doula. One client in particular worries her; Meredith fears her husband might be abusing her, and she's also unhappy with the way the woman’s obstetrician treats her. So this novel is both a mystery about what led to Meredith’s death and Delilah’s imprisonment and the story of what Delilah's return might mean to her family and all their well-meaning neighbors. Someone is not who they seem; someone has been keeping secrets for 11 long years. The chapters complement one another like a patchwork quilt, slowly revealing the rotten heart of a murderer amid a number of misdirections. The main problem: As it becomes clear whodunit, there’s no true groundwork laid for us to believe that this person would behave at all the way they do.
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-778-38944-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Park Row Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Fine Grisham storytelling that his fans will enjoy.
A descendant of enslaved people fights a Florida developer over the future of a small island.
In 1760, the slave ship Venus breaks apart in a storm on its way to Savannah, and only a few survivors, all Africans, find their way safely to a tiny barrier island between Florida and Georgia. For two centuries, only formerly enslaved people and their descendants live there. A curse on white people hangs over the island, and none who ever set foot on it survive. Its last resident was Lovely Jackson, who departed as a teen in 1955. Today—well, in 2020—a developer called Tidal Breeze wants Florida’s permission to “develop” Dark Isle, which sits within bridge-building distance from the well-established Camino Island. The plot is an easy setup for Grisham, big people vs. little people. Lovely’s revered ancestors are buried on Dark Isle, which Hurricane Leo devastated from end to end. Lovely claims the islet’s ownership despite not having formal title, and she wants white folks to leave the place alone. But apparently Florida doesn’t have enough casinos and golf courses to suit some people. Surely developers can buy off that little old Black lady with a half million bucks. No? How about a million? “I wish they’d stop offering money,” Lovely complains. “I ain’t for sale.” Thus a non-jury court trial begins to establish ownership. The story has no legal fireworks, just ordinary maneuvering. The real fun is in the backstory, in the portrayal of the aptly named Lovely, and the skittishness of white people to step on the island as long as the ancient curse remains. Lovely has self-published a history of the island, and a sympathetic white woman named Mercer Mann decides to write a nonfiction account as well. When that book ultimately comes out, reviewers for Kirkus (and others) “raved on and on.” Don’t expect stunning twists, though early on Dark Isle gives four white guys a stark message. The tension ends with the judge’s verdict, but the remaining 30 pages bring the story to a satisfying conclusion.
Fine Grisham storytelling that his fans will enjoy.Pub Date: May 28, 2024
ISBN: 9780385545990
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
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