A slightly shaggy conclusion to a generally worthwhile enterprise.
Alexander Vasin returns for the last installment of the trilogy that began with Black Sun (2019).
Having stepped on some powerful toes in his previous adventure (Red Traitor, 2021), Vasin has been assigned the command of a vestigial prison camp in the deep reaches of Siberia, where, insufficiently brutal by nature, he coexists uneasily with his more effective second-in-command. Then his KGB boss, Gen. Orlov, saddles him with Andrei Fyodorov, a special-status prisoner to be kept secret and alive at any cost. When a gang of Chechen prisoners riots and takes over most of the camp, Vasin, Fyodorov, and a small group manage a tricky escape during which Vasin learns what is special about his prisoner. Fyodorov claims to have been ordered to recruit Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate President John F. Kennedy and to have documentation proving it. Though he refused, feeling Oswald was too unstable, the assassination took place. The documentation is of interest to many people: Fyodorov wants to leverage an escape from the Soviet Union, a KGB faction wants to suppress it and kill Fyodorov, and Vasin sees in it an opportunity to get back to Moscow and possibly topple Orlov. After the escape from the Chechens, Vasin and Fyodorov conduct a cross-country hide-and-seek dance—Fyodorov keeps escaping and Vasin tracks him down, but because Vasin needs his cooperation, Fyodorov is never clapped in irons or just shot. While the previous volumes of the trilogy are rooted in historical fact, there is no history underpinning this story, and perhaps because it does not have a predetermined endpoint, the whole enterprise feels a little formless. Matthews is reliable in matters of setting and details of Soviet life, but the narration lacks focused energy.
A slightly shaggy conclusion to a generally worthwhile enterprise.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780385543446
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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
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