Thriller fans will find this adventure highly entertaining and addictive.
Zappa’s latest installment in his saga featuring Jo Crowder pits the New Orleans homicide detective against a ruthless Mexican drug lord.
After stealing a cache of drugs and money from a recent raid, a disillusioned Crowder is caught, convicted, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. “Here I am, putting my life on the line every fucking day doing my job, while others are getting away with shit—buying new cars, paying off their mortgages and credit card debt, and padding their bank accounts. And me, I can barely afford the mortgage payment on the dump I call a home.” Temporarily housed in a low-security detention facility, Crowder realizes she can’t spend the next two decades in prison—she needs to escape as soon as possible, flee the country, and try to begin a new life under a new identity. Then Elena Sanchez-Gomez—the wife of the head of an infamous Mexican drug-trafficking cartel—enters the facility as a prisoner; she’s recently been convicted of the attempted murder of a Louisiana state trooper during a traffic stop. The two women soon join forces in an attempt to not only survive the many dangers of the prison system but also to try to escape, cross the border into Mexico, and reunite with Sanchez-Gomez’s all-powerful husband, nicknamed El Leon (the Lion). Both women are cunning in their own ways: Crowder is a “dirty cop” with military and combat training, and Sanchez-Gomez is a survivor of Mexico’s mean streets, an orphan who’s had to kill multiple times to survive. Should the modern-day versions of Thelma and Louise eventually find a way to escape the detention faculty, their path to freedom—literally more than a thousand miles into southern Mexico—will be flooded with DEA agents, police officers, enemy cartel members, and innumerable people seeking the lucrative reward money for apprehending the two escaped convicts.
Complicating matters is El Leon’s newest drug on the market, which is laced with fentanyl, ecstasy, and LSD and is “a hundred times more potent than prescription oxycodone.” Described as “the most dangerous drug to have ever been trafficked in the United States,” the deadly new product leaves Crowder with a conflicted conscience. Her intense bond with Sanchez-Gomez is genuine, but will helping her ultimately end up killing thousands of addicts in the States? The action-packed story revolves around a cast of diverse and deeply developed characters, but the novel’s greatest strength comes from former trial lawyer Zappa’s ability to construct an impressively intricate storyline. The plot twists are worthy of applause, and readers will find themselves riveted throughout this highly palatable fusion of police procedural and mainstream thriller. The novel also differentiates itself from comparable titles through an examination (albeit subtle) of the opioid epidemic, which brings a timeliness and thematic weight to the story: “The body count from accidental overdoses continued to rise [in] the streets of more American cities. The only way to slow the emerging fentanyl epidemic was to stop the manufacture of [the] drug.”
Thriller fans will find this adventure highly entertaining and addictive.Pub Date: May 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781922329660
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Alkira
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A touching story of love and grief ends in an epic battle of good versus evil.
Roberts’ latest may move you to tears, or joy, or dread, or all three.
Every summer, John and Cora Fox visit Cora’s mother, Lucy Lannigan, in Redbud Hollow, Kentucky, leaving their children, 12-year-old Thea and 10-year-old Rem, for a two-week taste of heaven. The children love Grammie Lucy far more than John’s snooty family, which looks down on Cora. Lucy, a healer with deep Appalachian roots, loves animals, cooks the best meals, plays musical instruments, and makes soap and candles for her thriving business. Thea—who’s inherited the psychic abilities passed down through the women of Lucy’s family—has vivid magical dreams, one of which becomes a living nightmare when a psychopath robs and murders John and Cora as Thea watches helplessly. Thea’s description of the killer and her ability to see him in real time help the skeptical police catch Ray Riggs, who goes to prison for life. Although Thea and Rem go on to have a wonderful childhood with Grammie, Thea constantly wages a mental battle with Riggs, who tries to use his own psychic abilities to get into her mind. Over the years, Thea uses her imagination to become a game designer while the more business-minded Rem helps manage her career. Thea eventually builds a house near Lucy, where a newly arrived neighbor is her teen crush, singer-songwriter Tyler Brennan. Tyler has his own issues and is protective of his young son but slowly builds a loving relationship with Thea, whose silence about her abilities leads to a devastating misunderstanding. At first Thea tries to keep Riggs locked out of her mind. As her powers grow, she torments him. Finally, she realizes that she must win this battle and destroy him if she’s ever to have peace.
A touching story of love and grief ends in an epic battle of good versus evil.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781250289698
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
The most cinematic Ruth Ware novel so far.
A reality TV paradise becomes a nightmare for the show’s unlucky contestants.
Lyla Santiago and Nico Reese have been dating for more than two years, and she’s beginning to feel like their relationship may be hitting a wall; she loves him, but his main focus at 28 is on his acting career, while, at 32, scientist Lyla is starting to dream about settling down. When Nico pleads with her to join him on a new reality TV show, One Perfect Couple, Lyla views it as an opportunity to see whether their relationship can go the distance—in reality as well as on TV. They arrive on a remote Indonesian island to find blue waters, white sands, romantic huts, and eight other contestants, all beautiful, glamorous, and clearly committed to bolstering their visibility by competing on the show. The director seems a bit shady; he insists (as their contract demands) that they turn in all electronics, plies them with booze, and then leaves with the crew—and the first ousted contestant. That night, a huge storm sweeps across the island. The next morning reveals a fatality among the wreckage: a hut and its inhabitant have been crushed by a tree, and the outbuildings have been destroyed. The remaining contestants are cut off from all communication, with the exception of one radio, and there is a very limited supply of food and water. So Love Island becomes Survivor, and one person in particular is set on being the last person standing. Ware offers another take on the locked-room mystery, but this time, her focus is less on creating a creepy atmosphere of dread, as she did in earlier novels, than on showing the absolute brutality of which some humans are capable. But she still has a good time herself: There’s a funny self-referential line to an earlier novel, plus some female characters MacGyver-ing a battery. The prolific Ware continues to stretch herself, taking on something new in each novel and writing strong—and increasingly kick-ass—female characters.
The most cinematic Ruth Ware novel so far.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781668025598
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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