Kudos to Lagercrantz and translator Giles for a compelling read.
This dark murder mystery by the bestselling Swedish author who continued Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series plumbs the depths of Taliban depravity.
In 2003, youth soccer coach and Afghan refugee Jamal Kabir is murdered in Stockholm, his skull crushed by a rock. Once police realize that an enraged soccer dad did not commit the crime, they begin to dig—and to discover the killer, they must learn more about the victim. Was Kabir “some sort of terrorist”? Why had he smashed a woman’s clarinet in Kabul? Women musicians had been banned from practicing their craft since 1992, but once the Taliban took power, “what had previously been prohibited became downright dangerous.” Police officer Micaela Vargas is part of the investigating task force, which hires renowned Stanford psychology professor Hans Rekke to assist. Vargas is an honest, hardworking young cop who happens to have a lowlife brother with criminal ties, while Rekke takes homicide investigation to a whole new level. The esteemed “specialist in interrogation techniques” is a pill-popping wreck who can hardly keep himself and his family together, but his observational powers rival those of Sherlock Holmes. He looks at a cop’s hand and deduces that he’d been at the firing range that day, that he has tennis elbow but doesn’t play tennis, and that the crown of his watch is about to fall off because of movements caused by his suppressed neurosis. Remarkable snap observations, Micaela observes. Not really, Rekke replies. It’s just one of many from this gem of a character. The complex plot includes the CIA with references to Abu Ghraib and the Salt Pit prison, but that’s not the main focus. The ending hints at a Rekke-Vargas sequel, and that would be most welcome.
Kudos to Lagercrantz and translator Giles for a compelling read.Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-31921-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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
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