An intriguing but uneven spy tale.
A comic espionage novel reimagines two famous art curators as wartime spies.
Hitler has risen to power in Germany, and America’s Public Hero No. 1, J. Edgar Hoover, suspects that the Nazi dictator is sending spies to the United States disguised as avant-garde artists. In order to sniff out the spy ring, Hoover seeks out two women known for discovering (and bedding) the finest artists in New York City: Baroness Hilla Rebay and Peggy Guggenheim. “We’ll put you through our Counter-Spy Training Program and you’ll learn how to smash Nazi spy rings,” Hoover’s subordinate and lover, Clyde Tolson, pitches them. “Publicity should be good for your museums’ images. Nothing wrong with making a buck.” The only problem? These two high-society women have an intensely personal rivalry that makes it difficult for them to be in the same room without literally punching each other in the nose. Hoover brokers peace between the heiresses for the sake of the country, and the two of them are soon serving the FBI as a dynamic duo aligned against America’s greatest enemies, including Hitler, Stalin, the Japanese, and various traitorous forces at work within the country’s borders. Soon, they are operating undercover at Nazi meetings, tailing spies, and preventing presidential assassinations on the floor of Congress. Along the way, they meet fellow masters of espionage like the handsome but chauvinistic Agent X-9; British spy Jonquil “Junk” Bond (father of James); and a pair of “Special Agent Super Sluts” named Bambi and Knockers. But do the two protagonists have what it takes to save the homeland from the most dangerous Soviet spy the FBI has ever come up against—a man known only as “the Pigeon”?
The inventive premise suggests a fun thriller set in the art world of the 1940s, and the prose is richly inflected with arresting details. But ultimately, this is a farce, replete with broad sex jokes, thin characters, and a ton of slapstick. (In the very first scene, Hilla flips Hoover over her shoulder for pointing his gun at her. He then slips on multiple banana peels.) Powers does not make much of an effort to render the historical characters recognizable in any way. Everyone is extremely horny, very violent, and speaks in the same gangster movie banter. Here, Guggenheim explains the Equal Rights Amendment to X-9: “ ‘Whaddya mean, an Equal Rights Amendment?’ a belligerent X-9 demanded. ‘It means that us gals get everything you guys get. We can do anything you can do and do it better, and we can go anywhere you go.’ ‘Ya mean ya want to go to the can with us?’ ” What’s more, the story is exceedingly episodic, and it is not until the final chapter that the author ties the various plotlines together. Given the extreme vintage of the humor and the book’s 410-page length, many readers will struggle to get to the end.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781604893397
Page Count: 412
Publisher: Livingston Press
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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