A moving, grippingly relevant mystery.
Young neo-Nazis in Rancho Santa Elena, a quiet Southern California town, conduct a campaign of hate crimes against minorities, leading police detective Ben Wade to uncover a widespread White supremacist conspiracy.
Set in 1987, this thriller focuses on Jacob, a 14-year-old boy who’s recruited into a gang of skinheads by his 20-something neighbor Ian after Ian sees him testing out homemade pipe bombs in his backyard. Ian, the son of a corrupt councilman whose eldest son was killed in Vietnam, has terrorized a Vietnamese shop owner named Bao Phan and his family by leaving a fatally poisoned, throat-slit dog by their back door. Jacob, the abused son of a traumatized Vietnam veteran, is officially inducted as a skinhead after being pressured to brutally attack Mexican migrant workers. Shocked to discover his father is having an affair with a young Vietnamese woman—Bao’s 22-year-old daughter, Linh—Jacob is overcome with rage. Meanwhile, having left the LAPD, worn down by gang wars in that city, Wade is surprised to confront an even worse form of violence in Rancho Santa Elena. In Los Angeles, there was a logic to the gang wars, which were over drugs, territory, and money. “This is just hate,” he says. “Nothing rational about it.” Though set in the past, at a time when the internet was first enabling hate groups opposed to the very existence of the federal government to link up via online bulletin boards, Drew’s sequel to Shadow Man (2017) could hardly speak more powerfully to the present moment in the United States. A terrific crime novel with an explosive climax, the book dares to find a level of empathy with its young perpetrators, connecting the dots between being frightened and “walking around in the dark” and turning to hate.
A moving, grippingly relevant mystery.Pub Date: June 14, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-399-59212-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.
A routine break-in at the home of Sûreté homicide chief Armand Gamache leads slowly but surely to the revelation of a potentially calamitous threat to all Québec.
At first it seems as if nothing at all triggered the burglar alarm at Gamache’s home in Three Pines; it was literally a false alarm. It’s not till he receives a package containing his summer jacket that Gamache realizes someone really did get into his house, choosing to steal exactly this one item and return it with a cryptic note referring to “some malady…water” and “Angelica stems.” Having already refused to meet with Jeanne Caron, chief of staff to Marcus Lauzon, a powerful politician who’s already taken vengeance on Gamache and his family for not expunging his child’s criminal record, Gamache now agrees to meet with Charles Langlois, a marine biologist with ties to Caron who confesses to a leading role in stealing Gamache’s jacket. Their meeting ends inconclusively for Gamache, who’s convinced that Langlois is hiding something weighty, and all too conclusively for Langlois, who’s killed by a hit-and-run driver as he leaves. The news that Langlois had been investigating a water supply near the abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups sends Gamache scurrying off to the abbey, where the plot steadily thickens until he’s led to ask how “an old recipe for Chartreuse” can possibly be connected to “a terrorist plot to poison Québec’s drinking water.” That’s a great question, and answering it will take the second half of this story, which spins ever more intricate connections among leading players that become deeply unsettling.
One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9781250328137
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
Jack Ryan is in good hands with Cameron. There’s plenty of action for Clancy fans.
A generic title for Jack Ryan’s umpteenth encounter with mortal danger.
An aide tells President Ryan that he is “the kind of man who creates his own weather,” but that weather tends to be a violent storm. This time, Ryan plans a flight to Argentina but decides to first make a secret stop in Panama to visit President Botero. The secret leaks, of course, resulting in mucho mayhem as Ryan stumbles into the middle of a coup attempt. Meanwhile, the CIA’s Ground Branch kills the Venezuelan Russian assassin Joaquín Gorshkov, incurring the wrath of his batbleep-crazy sister, Sabine Gorshkova. Not much of a family person, she decides to have her younger sister, Blanca, killed and fed to the pigs. Sabine lays blame for her brother’s death on Mary Pat Foley, Director of National Intelligence, and swears claw-hammer vengeance. “I have a special interest in a little bird traveling with the President,” she declares. Oh yes, and a plot is afoot to murder Panama’s president and vice president to “liberate” the country. Russian naval vessels linger near the Panama Canal, ostensibly ready to help should the need arise. Ryan must tread carefully so as not to make the situation worse than it already is. The action-filled tale carries on the late Clancy's tradition, for example including great dollops of detail without hurting the storyline. There's almost enough about the Panama Canal for a Wikipedia entry and yet the facts flow as well as water through the Miraflores Locks. And readers will learn all seven types of weaponry on the Russian destroyer Admiral Chabanenko, aka The Black Terror, and the handy fact that a Bowers Group suppressor needs lithium grease. Bombs explode, bullets fly, and a Panamanian major shows her heroic mettle.
Jack Ryan is in good hands with Cameron. There’s plenty of action for Clancy fans.Pub Date: Nov. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780593422847
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
© 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.
