A gripping, thought-provoking caper that successfully introduces a different kind of merc.
A hard-edged gun for hire finds love and a new direction in James’ thriller series starter.
Cain—one name only, so you know he means business—is an elite soldier of fortune at the top of his game. The only reprieve from his dangerous profession is his relationship with Francesca Pieralisi, the mayor of Venice, who was once his client; he protected her from mob boss Vincenzo da Avolo and helped bring him down. She’s also the lead advocate for the European Union’s sea wall project, meant to protect its nations from rising water levels caused by climate change. The lovers meet up between his scores, but Francesca, terrified by Cain’s risky job, reaches a breaking point and they split up—for a month. Later, while Cain is away on a complicated assignment, Francesca becomes da Avolo’s target after the mobster escapes prison. Cain, with help from his wealthy friend, known only as Lester, must hunt down the mastermind, who has a horrific vision for the world. In this first book in his new series, James, the author of Shadow Over Odiome (2014), offers a winning combination in Cain and Francesca. As Cain’s backstory unfolds, it becomes easy to understand how he became the rare hired gun with principles. However, Francesca is revealed to have a strength of will that some readers may find refreshing in a public servant, and she develops into a skilled agent who’s nearly Cain’s equal. Entrepreneur Lester, who has often used Cain’s services, adds an element of snark (“compliments don’t feed the bulldog”) that skillfully cuts the tension at times. Despite the story’s being set in the future, with elements such as Mars colonization, James keeps it timely, referencing the dangers of climate-fueled chaos and white nationalism. He barely scratches the surface of his series’ potential in this initial volume; hopefully, Cain and Francesca still have many action-packed adventures awaiting them.
A gripping, thought-provoking caper that successfully introduces a different kind of merc.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9798851178290
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the...
Brown presents the second installment of his epic science-fiction trilogy, and like the first (Red Rising, 2014), it’s chock-full of interpersonal tension, class conflict and violence.
The opening reintroduces us to Darrow au Andromedus, whose wife, Eo, was killed in the first volume. Also known as the Reaper, Darrow is a lancer in the House of Augustus and is still looking for revenge on the Golds, who are both in control and in the ascendant. The novel opens with a galactic war game, seemingly a simulation, but Darrow’s opponent, Karnus au Bellona, makes it very real when he rams Darrow’s ship and causes a large number of fatalities. In the main narrative thread, Darrow has infiltrated the Golds and continues to seek ways to subvert their oppressive and dominant culture. The world Brown creates here is both dense and densely populated, with a curious amalgam of the classical, the medieval and the futuristic. Characters with names like Cassius, Pliny, Theodora and Nero coexist—sometimes uneasily—with Daxo, Kavax and Sevro. And the characters inhabit a world with a vaguely medieval social hierarchy yet containing futuristic technology such as gravBoots. Amid the chronological murkiness, one thing is clear—Darrow is an assertive hero claiming as a birthright his obligation to fight against oppression: "For seven hundred years we have been enslaved….We have been kept in darkness. But there will come a day when we walk in the light." Stirring—and archetypal—stuff.
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the future and quasi-historicism.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-345-53981-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
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