This engaging, layered work proves to be both a love story and a cautionary tale.
An idealistic teacher gets sucked into an unfamiliar world of war profiteering in this bracing thriller.
Life changes for Roger Williams, a math teacher, when he meets and falls in love with Jill, an attractive woman who’s probably out of his league. They marry despite knowing little about each other. All Roger knows about Jill’s job is that she works for the shadowy Army contractor Grayrock. When Jill disappears, Roger suspects that she may have run off with her co-worker Lyle White. At the urging of friendly restaurateur Omar, Roger travels to Afghanistan looking for his wife. Once there, he eventually learns from Lyle that Jill is probably dead back in the States. He also discovers that he’s unknowingly part of a scheme to launder aid money stolen by Jill and Lyle. As Roger struggles to extricate himself from the con, he also tries to protect Sophie Martens, a Belgian aid worker. Had the money not been stolen, it was earmarked for Sophie’s group, which trains female teachers in Afghanistan. Despite being out of their depth, Roger and Sophie attempt to right a raft of wrongs in a country at war. In this battle between those trying to help (aid workers) and those trying to profit (exploitive contractors), author Keech, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Iran, makes no bones about which side he supports. Lyle is outright venal, with Jill only slightly more likable. Keech portrays Roger and Sophie as forces of good—moral but naïve—and their journey toward finding each other amid danger is memorable. However, the true scene-stealer here is the country of Afghanistan, brought to life in this well-researched volume (“Crawling through the traffic, they saw the turquoise blue dome of the mosque and its twin minarets against the mountains in the distance”). The chaos of war catalyzes key developments in the plot, and Afghanistan’s citizenry plays a strong supporting role.
This engaging, layered work proves to be both a love story and a cautionary tale.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 979-8985667004
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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