For fans of the genre, this story of military action will not disappoint.
Two men’s lives are forever changed when their paths cross in Demith’s military thriller.
Samir Al Khafaji is quiet and keeps to himself, showing promise in his chosen path as a linguist for the United States Army, but something about him makes his superiors suspicious. Unbeknownst to those around him, Al Khafaji is working undercover for Jihadists, scheming to gain the military’s trust to cause as much destruction and death as possible—he believes his fellow soldiers are infidels and traitors, and that it is therefore his duty to kill them (“I will take pleasure in what is waiting for them once we get to Iraq”). Sgt. Abdullah is a man of integrity, honor, and hard work. He repeatedly goes back to Iraq, returning to visit the childhood home he left when his family moved to the United States. As a soldier in the Army, he’s worked as a linguist and a mechanic, and he is dedicated to serving his country. Alongside them is Sara Rashidi, who trained with Al Khafaji to become a linguist, joining the Army after her Kurdish family was killed by Iraqi combatants. The three of them are sent to Iraq to find and take down a militant cell of terrorists with other linguists and old friends, some of whom may not survive the oncoming battle. Abdullah and Al Khafaji are compelling foils for each other, with the story switching between their points of view and illustrating their different perspectives on the war in Iraq. Sara provides another outlook, having been greatly affected by the conflicts in her home country. Demith supports this action-packed story with his own vast knowledge of the military, carefully detailing the large amount of training and planning that goes into missions. The great volume of technical information that makes up a large portion of the book is deftly conveyed and made easy for the average reader to understand and follow. Exposition is skillfully woven into the development of the story of Abdullah and Al Khafaji, which leads to a satisfying ending.
For fans of the genre, this story of military action will not disappoint.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781962202299
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Ballast Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Gloriously artificial, improbable, and ingenious. Fans of both versions of Horowitz will rejoice.
What begins as a decorous whodunit set in a gated community on the River Thames turns out to be another metafictional romp for mystery writer Anthony Horowitz and his frequent collaborator, ex-DI Daniel Hawthorne.
Everyone in Riverview Close hates Giles Kenworthy, an entitled hedge fund manager who bought Riverview Lodge from chess grandmaster Adam Strauss when the failure of Adam’s chess-themed TV show forced him and his wife, Teri, to downsize to The Stables at the opposite end of the development. So the surprise when Kenworthy’s wife, retired air hostess Lynda, returns home from an evening out with her French teacher, Jean-François, to find her husband’s dead body is mainly restricted to the manner of his death: He’s been shot through the throat with an arrow. Suspects include—and seem to be limited to—Richmond GP Dr. Tom Beresford and his wife, jewelry designer Gemma; widowed ex-nuns May Winslow and Phyllis Moore; and retired barrister Andrew Pennington, whose name is one of many nods to Agatha Christie. Detective Superintendent Tariq Khan, feeling outside his element, calls in Hawthorne and his old friend John Dudley as consultants, and eventually the case is marked as solved. Five years later, Horowitz, needing to plot and write a new novel on short notice, asks Hawthorne if he can supply enough information about the case to serve as its basis, launching another prickly collaboration in which Hawthorne conceals as much as he reveals. To say more, as usual with this ultrabrainy series, would spoil the string of surprises the real-life author has planted like so many explosive devices.
Gloriously artificial, improbable, and ingenious. Fans of both versions of Horowitz will rejoice.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780063305649
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.
Dexter meets Killing Eve in Wallace’s dark comic thriller debut.
While accepting condolences following her father’s funeral, 30-something narrator Claire receives an email saying that one of her paintings is a finalist for a prize. But her joy is short-circuited the next morning when she learns in a second apologetic note that the initial email had been sent to the wrong Claire. The sender, Lucas Kane, is “terribly, terribly sorry” for his mistake. Claire, torn between her anger and suicidal thoughts, has doubts about his sincerity and stalks him to a London pub, where his fate is sealed: “I stare at Lucas Kane in real life, and within moments I know. He doesn’t look sorry.” She dispatches and buries Lucas in her back garden, but this crime does not go unnoticed. Proud of her meticulous standards as a serial killer, Claire wonders if her grief for her father is making her reckless as she seeks to identify the blackmailer among the members of her weekly bereavement support group. The female serial killer as antihero is a growing subgenre (see Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, 2018), and Wallace’s sociopathic protagonist is a mordantly amusing addition; the tool she uses to interact with ordinary people while hiding her homicidal nature is especially sardonic: “Whenever I’m unsure of how I’m expected to respond, I use a cliché. Even if I’m not sure what it means, even if I use it incorrectly, no one ever seems to mind.” The well-written storyline tackles some tough subjects—dementia, elder abuse, and parental cruelty—but the convoluted plot starts to drag at the halfway point. Given the lack of empathy in Claire’s narration, most of the characters come across as not very likable, and the reader tires of her sneering contempt.
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780143136170
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
