A fun SF action-thriller weighed down by clichéd characters.
In Bentley’s novel, a former World War II spy must deal with the effects of a dangerous quantum technology.
“The Mirror,” a piece of quantum technology, can split timelines and take people into different versions of their own histories; it also has dangerous, destabilizing effects. During World War II, spies used the Mirror to conduct missions, even though the device often drove people insane, prematurely aged them, or physically injured them. These people were called “sliders.” Now, in 1947, the war is over, but the Mirror is still out there. Max Calder is one of the sliders, a brilliant operative with street-fighting prowess and psychological acuity. He thinks he’s done with the Mirror, but that changes when he’s contacted by a mysterious woman whom he only vaguely remembers—she’s another slider, named Alicia, who proves to be as brilliant as he is. She warns him that he’s still in danger from the Mirror, and that its creator, Dr. Emil Krane, plans to continue using it without regard for who it might hurt. The two of them travel to Vienna, Prague, and finally Montevideo in an effort to stop Krane and neutralize—or destroy—the Mirror. Along the way, they meet many old friends and foes, encounter treachery and violence, and face the impact of the past. Bentley does a deft job of keeping the many narrative threads straight, and the story flows well, as do its action sequences. The SF elements are solid: the Mirror is described in fascinating detail, and the ideas behind it are explored thoroughly but not overwhelmingly. The spy and noir elements are less successful; Max is so impossibly talented, so antisocial yet simultaneously alluring that he reads almost like a parody (“You were always the best one of us”). But he’s played straight, and that means there isn’t a lot to him aside from clichés. Alicia is similar, though it’s worth noting that she has agency and perspective beyond the role of a romantic interest. This inventive novel displays a lot of potential, and one hopes that in the future Bentley will apply the same complexity to his characters as he does to his physics.
A fun SF action-thriller weighed down by clichéd characters.Pub Date: July 23, 2025
ISBN: 9798998638305
Page Count: 314
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2025
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
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.
A series of mounting complications leads to yet another fight to the death between the discarded intelligence agents of Slough House and the morally bankrupt head of MI5.
As Jackson Lamb’s motley crew on Aldersgate Street struggles to cope with the deaths of River Cartwright’s grandfather and mentor, intelligence veteran David Cartwright, and their dim, beloved colleague Min Harper, new troubles are brewing. Diana Taverner, who runs the British Intelligence Service from Regent’s Park, is being blackmailed by former MP Peter Judd to do his bidding. Nothing untoward about that, of course, but this time, Judd’s demands, backed by a compromising tape recording, are more pressing than usual. So Diana reconvenes the Brains Trust—Al Hawke, Avril Potts, Daisy Wessex, and their ex-boss Charles Cornell Stamoran—whose last assignment was to serve as the contact for psychopathic IRA informant Dougie Malone while turning a blind eye to his multiple rapes and murders, which were really none of the Crown’s business. Taverner’s new assignment for the Brains Trust is the assassination of Judd. Since all these developments are filtered through the riotously cynical lens of Herron’s imagination, nothing goes as planned, and when the smoke clears, the fatalities don’t include Judd. Now that Judd knows he has as much reason to fear Taverner as she does to fear him, Lamb offers to broker a peace meeting between them which Slough House computer geek Roddy Ho will keep secret by knocking out 37 security cameras around Taverner’s dwelling. What could possibly go wrong?
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781641297264
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 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.
