Proof that we don’t need the Cold War for smart spy fiction.
A retired CIA officer is pulled back into a dangerous game in this spy thriller by the author of Beirut Station (2023).
Alexander Matthews retired from the CIA and started Trinity Capital, a highly successful venture capital firm that often brings him to Russia. Once he’d been the CIA’s top spy in Moscow, but that’s all behind him now. But the Agency asks him for a favor: help extricate a Russian asset code-named Byron, a KGB-trained intelligence officer whom he had recruited and who claims to have sensitive secrets the CIA wants. He’d recruited other “poets” such as Keats and Blake, but they have vanished, perhaps in the bowels of Lefortvo Prison with bullets to the skull. Matthews has good reasons to decline: His late wife and daughter, killed in a boating accident while he was away, hated his lengthy absences, and he is on the verge of being estranged from his surviving son. He’s remarried to a CIA translator, and his travel stresses that marriage. So of course he goes to Moscow and is promptly arrested on a trumped-up solicitation charge. Then the FSB tells him he’s being investigated for tax fraud. Soon, he’s reminded that it’s dangerous for a wealthy American investor in Russia to be in the tabloids. And speaking of which, Byron claims to have the FSB’s kompromat on Topcat, who’d been in Moscow for the Miss Universe contest in 2013. One CIA official calls him Apocalypse 45, but like Voldemort, no one says his name. Readers will have to figure that out. Meanwhile, Langley believes it has a mole. Matthews feels an emotional tug to Russia’s capital city: He “wasn’t from Moscow, but he was of Moscow.” He’s going to have to get over that, as he’s not safe there anymore. Can he successfully exfiltrate Byron? As tension builds to a dramatic conclusion, so does the doubt. Vivid writing sets the tone: “The vans, yellow lights flashing, swallowed the prisoners like whales swallowing krill.” The plot delivers eye-opening twists as well as insights into the Russian psyche. “In Russia,” a character says, “stories never have happy endings.” This one fits right in.
Proof that we don’t need the Cold War for smart spy fiction.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781639368853
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Jewell is absolutely a genius at building suspense, but the “man behaving badly” plot is getting tired.
Following her father’s sudden death, Aisling Swann is secretly horrified when her mother begins to date again—and she quickly becomes suspicious of this new flame.
Four years ago: A mysterious male narrator reflects upon his relationship with his wife—along with a few pointed comments about how she is aging. It quickly becomes apparent that this self-proclaimed “very pleasant” man is not who he seems; he already has a girlfriend on the side, and he’s playing both women with sob stories about his job and his traumatic past while taking money from them. Even as they get more and more frustrated with his lack of communication during ever-lengthening absences, he still gives them what they want: “a top-notch husband.” In the present day, Ash Swann; her brother, Arlo; and their mother, Nina, mourn the loss of her charismatic father, Paddy, a successful chef with a chain of lucrative restaurants. Nina receives a sympathy note from a man who claims to have worked closely with Paddy in the industry, which leads to a robust online flirtation that moves into the real world about a year after her husband’s death. Ash is living at home, mired in grief as well as her own mental health struggles, and she’s none too happy to see her mom dating—but particularly this handsome, egregiously suave Nick Radcliffe. Ash begins to notice some inconsistencies with his stories and his past, so she enlists Paddy’s ex-girlfriend Jane to help her investigate. Meanwhile, Ash’s story continues to intercut that of the mysterious man who is now married to his former girlfriend—and still up to his old tricks. Jewell’s cutting between past and present certainly allows revelations to ooze out at a slow, controlled pace; even as the reader makes obvious connections, the full picture remains obscure. Jewell has written some incredibly engaging and strong female characters, Nina, Ash, and Jane foremost among them. What would it have been like to split the narrative between them instead of giving so much voice—and thus narrative power—to the male antagonist?
Jewell is absolutely a genius at building suspense, but the “man behaving badly” plot is getting tired.Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9781668033876
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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