An adrenaline-fueled spy romp that almost makes its familiar tropes seem new.
A former contract assassin finds the spy game a lot harder than it looks.
Ambassador Claus Eichberg rots in a Tunisian prison, blaming “Caspian Anderson and his cockroach of a girlfriend” and praying for death, which is finally, brutally delivered by villainous Hwang Sung-jin. For his part, Caspian, formerly an assassin under the code name Elias, currently works for the Defense Clandestine Service and is in Kenya tailing Brazilian politician Dolores Araujo, who’s secretly a paid Chinese asset. Following Araujo through the slums of Nairobi, he’s gobsmacked to spot the aforementioned girlfriend, Liesel Bergmann, apparently similarly engaged. Like him, she’s an experienced operative with an impressive resume. Simmering under the turbulent action of Elias’ second adventure is the same question that propelled the first (The Elias Network, 2024): Can Caspian trust Liesel? His latest mission takes him to France and ultimately Tanzania, but not before he ricochets around Washington and environs and commiserates with his family in Portland, Maine. The droll joke is that his parents and his brother, Nelson, a physician for Doctors Without Borders, expect mild-mannered Caspian to settle down in Portland and take over his dad’s modest trucking business. The mission he’s pursuing instead involves Frank LaBelle, a rather naïve tech chief executive. Caspian finds himself periodically facing perilous predicaments and twists of allegiance. Cryptocurrency of course figures prominently, and Sung-jin reappears for an evil encore. Gervais deftly shuffles his large cast of characters like pieces on a chessboard, with well-timed “surprises” and many chapters ending in cliffhangers.
An adrenaline-fueled spy romp that almost makes its familiar tropes seem new.Pub Date: July 8, 2025
ISBN: 9781662518553
Page Count: 348
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.
Evildoers plan attacks from America to India, and Jack Ryan Jr. is a prime target.
In Washington state, a man and his family are murdered, and President Jack Ryan learns it is another Poseidon Spear incident. Three retired members of that counterterrorism group have been killed now, and the U.S. government suspects a mole in its midst. Meanwhile, the Umayyad Revolutionary Council believes it has a holy and wholly anti-American mission. Against this backdrop, Jack Ryan Jr., and his fiancée, Lisanne Robertson, visit Delhi, India, to attend the wedding of Srini Rai, the brilliant surgeon who attached Lisanne’s prosthetic left arm. Lisanne had lost her arm in Tom Clancy Shadow of the Dragon (2020). Jack and Lisanne are both operators working for the Campus, a covert group that executes secret presidential directives. A wedding is a happy occasion, and the engaged American couple intend the trip as a vacation. Jack and Lisanne will attend a sangeet, an elaborate pre-wedding party. But it isn’t long before they survive a suicide bomb attack. As with all Clancy novels, there’s plenty of action on a global scale. In simultaneous strikes, terrorists plan to contaminate America’s Western water supply with radioactive waste from Washington’s Hanford nuclear power plant, blow up a spectacular new bridge in Kashmir, and kill the evil Ryan—or Junior, at least. It will be At-Takwir, the end of days. There is an appealing mix of Indian culture, high-speed action, and the rich lode of details that characterizes the whole series. And in the background lingers the question on several characters’ minds: Have Jack and Lisanne set their own wedding date?
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780593718032
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.
The 25th novel featuring Silva’s legendary protagonist.
During his intersecting careers as art restorer and Israeli spy, Gabriel Allon has tangled with Russian gangsters and al-Qaida terrorists. He has become well-acquainted with operatives in multiple security agencies and befriended a paid assassin. He has busted art thieves and created passable forgeries by Renaissance masters and abstract Modernists. This latest installment centers around his relationship with the pope and a newly discovered painting by Leonardo da Vinci that has gone missing from the Vatican. Silva’s novels tend to fall into two categories: books that reflect the politics of the day and books that don’t. His latest is one of the latter, which could be a treat for readers looking for escape, but it falls flat for a variety of reasons. Luxury has always been part of Gabriel Allon’s universe. It used to be an aspect of tradecraft, though. Allon would be wearing a very expensive suit and driving a very expensive car because he was posing as a client at a Swiss bank. Here, his wife is hosting a catered lunch for 150 of their daughter’s classmates in their apartment overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice. What once felt like a scintillating peek into the world of the obscenely wealthy now just feels…kind of obscene. Similarly, Allon goes chasing after a missing painting as a civilian—he retired from Mossad in Portrait of an Unknown Woman (2022)—the same way another man his age might buy a speedboat or get hair plugs. As the story progresses, the stakes are raised, but it’s hard to forget that Allon is now a middle-aged man pursuing a dangerous hobby, rather than a spymaster leading his intrepid team to prevent a disaster that will disrupt the global order.
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9780063384217
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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