Abrams’s experience as a Georgia legislator and big-time lawyer support insights into bureaucracy and security. The nonstop action and suspense mostly manage to overwhelm the reader’s sense of disbelief in a thriller that seems to burst out of today’s news.
Waters’s first novel is an engrossing mix of small-town lack of privacy, quirky friendships, feisty women, and several plot twists that truly do surprise Abbie as well as the reader.
This high-energy tale reads like Wonder Woman and Dr. Who came together to battle the Joker in an over-the-top thriller that still entices readers to keep feverishly turning pages. Blackwood, Cray, and the Warlock are likely to appear again in future confrontations between good and evil.
Filled with detailed descriptions of weapons and aircraft, as well as Brown’s trademark action and suspense, this series starter should take off like its numerous predecessors.
Clifford’s (“Jay Porter” series) sixth stand-alone (after Occam’s Razor) captivates with pell-mell action, striking characters, and a tantalizingly complex plot, yet at times is also melodramatic with shifting perspectives, cliff-hanging chapter endings, and ultimately an enigmatic finish.
The third Mycroft tale (after Mycroft and Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes) from coauthors Abdul-Jabbar and Waterhouse is another winner. The Victorian setting is well drawn, the dialog rings true, the period details, both factual and fictive, support a labyrinthine plot including race and class distinctions. It all meshes into a fine tale set prior to the Sherlockian stories we know so well. Highly recommended, as are its two predecessors.
This late-coming-of-age thriller, in which Victor learns just what he is capable of doing, grabs readers early and doesn’t readily let go. [See Prepub Alert, 1/23/19.]