Deadly Animals, Marie Tierney’s brilliantly plotted debut mystery, introduces readers to Ava Bonney: a 14-year-old English girl obsessed with decomposing bodies.
Deadly Animals, Marie Tierney’s brilliantly plotted debut mystery, introduces readers to Ava Bonney: a 14-year-old English girl obsessed with decomposing bodies.
John Straley’s nonstop, high-octane Big Breath In introduces the unforgettable Delphine, a 68-year-old cancer patient-turned-investigator.
John Straley’s nonstop, high-octane Big Breath In introduces the unforgettable Delphine, a 68-year-old cancer patient-turned-investigator.
Previous
Next

Sign Up

Get the latest ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

All Mystery Coverage

Filter by genre
Review by

For American spy John Wells, returning home after nearly a decade undercover is not going to be easy. Alex Berenson's debut novel, The Faithful Spy, reads as if torn from the pages of the New York Times, and has already been optioned for film. It's a zigzagging tale of espionage in a very real world, where the War on Terror has seeped into every facet of its characters' lives. An investigative reporter turned novelist, Berenson weaves a startlingly pertinent tale of terrorism, espionage and action in a post-9/11 world.

As the only Westerner to ever successfully infiltrate al Qaeda, CIA operative Wells finds himself being hand-selected by the mastermind behind all terrorist attacks in America to assist in the jihadi's next strike against the United States, a biochemical attack on American soil. Unfortunately for Wells, years of broken communication with his superiors, less than impressive intelligence and Wells' own conversion to Islam have left him with few friends to count on. Mistrust swirls about him, and those who would stand by him including the analyst responsible for his debriefing, Jennifer Exley walk that thin line separating loyalty from treason.

Berenson's extensive experience in field journalism lends substantial validity to the framework of the story, so that at times The Faithful Spy reads more like nonfiction than fiction. The novel delves into some very serious issues, including the seemingly insurmountable odds faced by agencies such as the FBI and CIA as they struggle to locate and disband terror cells within the United States. Berenson does not downplay the terrors of war, nor idly glaze over the violence it involves. Suspenseful, heartbreakingly poignant and thrilling all at once, this novel could stand as an archetype for modern espionage classics.

Travis Taylor writes from Detroit, Michigan.

 

For American spy John Wells, returning home after nearly a decade undercover is not going to be easy. Alex Berenson's debut novel, The Faithful Spy, reads as if torn from the pages of the New York Times, and has already been optioned for film.…

Review by

 

With the third entry of the Women’s Murder Club series, James Patterson and co-author Andrew Gross don’t even wait until the opening chapter to get the ball rolling. There, shining out from the dust jacket, is the warning, “One of James Patterson’s best-loved heroines is about to die.” This tantalizing but gratuitous revelation sets the pace for the book, which reads like a package of rapidly exploding firecrackers. But it’s bombs not firecrackers that are blowing people up in San Francisco as the city prepares to host a G-8 meeting of the world’s top finance ministers.

As in the two earlier books in the series 1st To Die and 2nd Chance the principal characters here are San Francisco Police Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer (who serves both as chief investigator and narrator), reporter Cindy Thomas, assistant district attorney Jill Bernhardt and medical examiner Claire Washburn. Each has a life, but they are most alive when they involve themselves in each other’s problems and triumphs.

Soon after Boxer is almost blown away in a townhouse explosion, it becomes clear that she is up against homegrown terrorists who are intent on slowing the juggernaut of global capitalism. At least that’s what they boast in the notes they leave behind with their victims and in the carefully masked e-mails they send to Thomas at her newspaper. Adding to Boxer’s burdens is her discovery that Bernhardt’s husband is abusing her. Then there’s the sticky matter of her growing attraction to Joe Molinari, who’s been sent in from Washington by the Department of Homeland Security to help out with the case.

Boxer’s sleuthing takes her across the bay to “The People’s Republic of Berkeley,” where she begins to unearth a cell led by radical holdovers from the1960s. While their rhetoric is dated, their weapons are state of the art: C-4 explosives ignited by cell phone, intimidation by internet and in an eerie anticipation of recent headlines the lavish use of the deadly poison ricin. In typical Patterson style, the chapters are so brief and filled with action that they flash by like movie scenes.

In an earlier interview with BookPage, Patterson brushed aside discussions of his prolific output this is his 25th book and his massive sales. “I think one of the most interesting things is the diversity of these books,” he said, “and the fact that on a pure readership level, a pure, spellbinding, can’t-put-it-down level, that they’re pretty successful. Forget about sales. They just move along real well.” This is Patterson’s third co-authorship with Gross, who made his debut with 2nd Chance and then went on to collaborate on the historical thriller, The Jester. Patterson’s reputation extends beyond writing a lot of fast-paced books to overseeing the ways they’re promoted and marketed. So the teasing dust jacket tip-off that a major character is “about to die” has his fingerprints all over it. “I involve myself in a fair amount of [planning],” he told BookPage. “We kind of like to sit in a room and go, ‘Do we like the cover?’ ‘Do we like the book?’ ‘Do we like the [proposed] tour?’ I think that’s a healthy thing to do. It works out very well.” It certainly works out well for 3rd Degree. By now the ladies are like old friends, whose quirks we cherish and whose troubles immediately become our own.

 

With the third entry of the Women's Murder Club series, James Patterson and co-author Andrew Gross don't even wait until the opening chapter to get the ball rolling. There, shining out from the dust jacket, is the warning, "One of James Patterson's best-loved heroines…

When we first meet 17-year-old Lem Atlick, he's selling encyclopedias door-to-door in a south Florida trailer park in the blistering heat to earn money to go to Columbia University. Always the successful salesman, he is invited into the mobile home of an anxious married couple, Karen and Bastard, and despite his discomfort with their odd behavior, he attempts to sell his educational goods to them. However, this transaction is cut surprisingly and violently short when his two customers are shot right before his very eyes by a rather charming young man named Melford Kean, who prefers to operate under the title assassin, as opposed to murderer, and generously doles out lectures on the benefits of vegetarianism and Marxism.

Lem soon finds himself unwittingly hurled into a world full of corrupt police chiefs, lisping rednecks, a formerly conjoined twin with a mysterious schema, drug smugglers and hog lots that conveniently double as places to hide dead bodies, all while still trying to attain the affections of the charming, sole female saleswoman, Chitra. Staying alive and innocent has never been so difficult.

The Ethical Assassin is David Liss' first non-historical novel, which may surprise many of his fans. Though the setting is a departure for him, the story is still full of the intelligence, humor, intrigue and suspense that marked his earlier works, which include The Coffee Trader (2004) and the Edgar Award-winning  A Conspiracy of Paper (2001). This time, Liss takes his readers to the rural town of Meadowbrook Grove, right into the thick of its delicate and dangerous secrets. The reluctant hero's journey involving criminal affairs and bizarre characters is not only engaging, but also refreshingly funny. The Ethical Assassin is a vibrant novel that is difficult to put down.

Stephanie Szymanski is a writer living in Pennsylvania.

When we first meet 17-year-old Lem Atlick, he's selling encyclopedias door-to-door in a south Florida trailer park in the blistering heat to earn money to go to Columbia University. Always the successful salesman, he is invited into the mobile home of an anxious married couple,…

Review by

If ever the adage "things aren’t always what they seem" applied to a novel, it would be to The Lake of Dead Languages. In her debut novel, Carol Goodman spins a tale that keeps the reader guessing on multiple fronts. The novel begins in the present day, when protagonist Jane Hudson returns to her alma mater, the Heart Lake School for Girls in the Adirondacks, to teach Latin. Newly divorced, Jane seems to have fled to Heart Lake to take refuge and re-evaluate her life. But the reader quickly discovers she has a past to reconcile when a page from her teenage journal reappears after more than two decades . . . and one of her students tries to kill herself.

Part two of the novel flashes back to Jane’s teenage years. Here the reader has a chance to get to know the younger Jane, a lonely girl who lives on the other side of the river ("in Corinth, it’s the river and not the train tracks that divide the haves from the have-nots"). Her mother encourages her to take Latin for the sole purpose of meeting, and hopefully befriending, the sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers. And it is in Latin class that Jane is befriended by siblings Matt and Lucy Toller two of the three teenagers who later commit suicide during Jane’s senior year at Heart Lake School.

The reader looks on as Jane steps through the veil of young adulthood when she loses her virginity and faces the death of a parent. But the trials of growing up are further complicated as the circumstances of the trio of tragic deaths are slowly unraveled. The reader begins to wonder if the student deaths were really suicide and comes to realize that Jane may be the only one who can answer that question.

While avid mystery readers may find they can figure out "whodunit" before the final page of most novels, The Lake of Dead Languages holds its secrets to the end. If it weren’t for Goodman’s keen ability to weave a mystery of multiple layers, each revealed with exquisite timing, her picturesque prose would be reason enough to keep the reader turning the pages.

Amy Rauch Neilson is a writer and editor in Belleville, Michigan.

 

If ever the adage "things aren't always what they seem" applied to a novel, it would be to The Lake of Dead Languages. In her debut novel, Carol Goodman spins a tale that keeps the reader guessing on multiple fronts. The novel begins in…

Review by

John Lawton’s striking new suspense novel, Bluffing Mr. Churchill, is set in the period between the height of the London Blitz and America’s entry into World War II. In this prequel to Lawton’s Inspector Troy series, an Austrian who has insinuated himself into the upper echelons of the Nazi SS and has spied first for Poland and then for the United States is now on the run. The narration rotates among several points of view those of the spy, his Nazi pursuers, his American handler, several British agents and the British policeman who ultimately must make sense of what has occurred. As the main action is playing out, Nazi officer Rudolph Hess lands a plane in Scotland on a mysterious true-life mission that has never been fully explained.

The author also brings other historical figures such as Reinhard Heydrich, a brutal SS chief, to life, and grants memorable cameos to a number of famous men and women who personified the times. One of the most chilling scenes involves Heydrich’s examination of the hands of a corpse that the fleeing spy has tried to pass off as his own. A surgeon has neatly removed the hands from the corpse and Heydrich’s assistant has a great deal of trouble deciding how to carry them into the room. He settles on a silver desert tray, and the fastidious Heydrich examines them very casually as if it were all part of a perfectly normal day. Another of the cameos is made by H.G. Wells, and in a comment that illustrates Lawton’s deftness in handling a broad range of tones, Wells is described as “having endured as much of his own silence as he could manage in the course of a single meal.” Freddie Troy is kept mostly on the sidelines in this novel, but all of the characters are vividly sketched. The exposition of their backgrounds is pointed and efficient, and their voices are differentiated enough for the reader to keep them straight but not so much that they seem caricatured. Overall, Bluffing Mr. Churchill is a historically fascinating story that is masterfully told. Martin Kich is an English professor at Wright State University.

John Lawton's striking new suspense novel, Bluffing Mr. Churchill, is set in the period between the height of the London Blitz and America's entry into World War II. In this prequel to Lawton's Inspector Troy series, an Austrian who has insinuated himself into the upper…
Review by

In Polar, Deputy Ray Tatum has two mysteries to solve: the disappearance of Angela Dunn, a wordless child who wanders into the woods, never to be seen again by her parents, and the sudden prophetic powers of the formerly worthless Clayton, a shiftless town institution best known for his preference for the porn channel. One mystery will be solved, while the other remains tantalizingly out of reach.

But these strong narrative engines are not what really drives Polar, T. R. Pearson’s latest novel. What Pearson seeks to do, instead, is capture the feel of small town life and the myriad personalities that give it texture, without resorting to the usual platitudes that pretend such towns have more than their share of unspoiled innocence. In other words, Pearson’s small-town Virginia is no Mayberry. Nor is it inhabited by the Cleavers.

The novelist thinks nothing of interrupting the flow of his narrative to give the life story of a minor character who may never appear in the book again. This doesn’t constitute an aesthetic flaw. After all, the true, unvarnished motivations of man are what Polar is really all about.

It’s about characters like Ivy Vaughn, a woman who remains in such a high dudgeon she never pays attention to the road and leaves a trail of dead animals in her wake. It’s also about Mrs. Dunn, who turns the loss of her daughter and husband into profit, launching a career as a radio celebrity whose collective losses make her an authority on flagging American morals.

And, of course, there is Clayton, whose television satellite is arced over his garage at an angle that betrays, for all to observe, his addiction to televised erotica. Clayton seems an unlikely candidate to be blessed with the gift of second sight. But fate, which has a definite sense of humor in a T.R. Pearson novel, chooses Clayton to become a small-time, small-town prophet.

Only Deputy Tatum is able to turn Clayton’s obscure prognostications to good purpose in his search for Angela. Motivated by the haunting memory of his own dead child, Ray pursues Angela’s story long after the media, the FBI and even the girl’s parents have given her up for lost. Using the prism of Tatum’s grief, Pearson critiques small-town pretensions and, by extension, America’s chronic hypocrisies.

In Polar, Deputy Ray Tatum has two mysteries to solve: the disappearance of Angela Dunn, a wordless child who wanders into the woods, never to be seen again by her parents, and the sudden prophetic powers of the formerly worthless Clayton, a shiftless town institution…

Review by

Prosecutor-turned-novelist Penn Cage, the hero of Greg Iles' 1999 bestseller The Quiet Game, is back in his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, and facing his most disturbing challenge yet: supporting a childhood friend and pillar of the community who is accused of the brutal rape and murder of a high school girl. When Kate Townsend, the 17-year-old star athlete and valedictorian of St. Stephen's Prep School, is found dead near the Mississippi River, the entire population of Natchez turns its every resource toward finding out who snuffed out one of the city's brightest stars. But even before the investigation begins, Dr. Andrew Elliott pulls aside his longtime friend Cage and asks for legal advice. The middle-aged doctor informs Cage of his torrid love affair with Townsend and his plans to divorce his wife and move to Boston with the young woman while she attended Harvard. Cage reluctantly agrees to help his friend, but in his search for the real killer, he gets a glimpse of the secret reality behind St. Stephen's, which includes widespread drug use, rampant sexual promiscuity and an entire generation of disaffected youth. As more and more Natchez residents are sadistically murdered, can Cage follow the blood trail to the killer before his friend's career and reputation are ruined?

In a genre filled with shining stars, Iles' storytelling mastery specifically his unfathomably deep plot complexity and insightful character development blazes like a supernova. This dark and disturbing look at the abhorrent pitfalls facing children in 21st-century America is sure to satisfy even the most demanding suspense fan.

Paul Goat Allen is a freelance editor and writer in Camillus, New York.

Prosecutor-turned-novelist Penn Cage, the hero of Greg Iles' 1999 bestseller The Quiet Game, is back in his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, and facing his most disturbing challenge yet: supporting a childhood friend and pillar of the community who is accused of the brutal rape…

Review by

What would happen if the man you just married yet hardly knew died suddenly, leaving behind not only a vast fortune, but a host of secrets as well? If you were an aristocrat in Victorian England, you'd certainly let sleeping dogs lie and focus your attentions on finding a new husband after an appropriate period of mourning. Fortunately for us, the independent-minded heroine in Tasha Alexander's debut novel has other ideas. Lady Emily Ashton has never been one to follow society's conventions, and after finding a mysterious cautionary note in her late husband Philip's personal effects, she decides to investigate his death.

Embarking on a search for answers that takes her from the halls of the British Museum to Paris and beyond, Emily plunges into a fascinating world of ancient antiquities, Greek mythology and scholarly pursuits not at all suited for a lady, as her class-conscious mother constantly reminds her. Undeterred, she delves further into her investigations and finds herself belatedly falling in love with her late husband, whom she'd married primarily as a means of escaping her mother's clutches. When her sleuthing reveals elements of forgery, theft and deception lurking beneath the surface of the genteel world of statuary collecting beloved by her husband, Emily ends up facing the same danger that may have brought about his untimely demise. Confiding in two of his dearest friends, both of whom vie feverishly for her affections, she soon realizes that in life, as in art, appearances can be deceiving.

Engagingly suspenseful and rich with period detail, And Only to Deceive provides a fascinating look at the repressive social mores and painstaking rules of etiquette in Victorian high society. Barrier-breaking sleuth Nancy Drew has nothing on Alexander's fearless and tenacious Lady Emily, and readers will be glad to discover that there's an encore performance in the works for this unconventional heroine.

Joni Rendon lives in London and loves novels about Victorian England, but is grateful for today's more relaxed code of conduct.

 

What would happen if the man you just married yet hardly knew died suddenly, leaving behind not only a vast fortune, but a host of secrets as well? If you were an aristocrat in Victorian England, you'd certainly let sleeping dogs lie and focus your attentions on finding a new husband after an appropriate period of mourning. Fortunately for us, the independent-minded heroine in Tasha Alexander's debut novel has other ideas.
Review by

Journalist Stewart Dubinsky, a character who’s appeared in several of Scott Turow’s legal thrillers, wants to write a book. Instead, he finds a story he’d never imagined.

When his father, David Dubin, dies, Stewart discovers a packet of David’s wartime letters to his fiancŽe with a note referring to his court-martial. Stewart had always known his father served as an Army lawyer in World War II, meeting his mother in a concentration camp, but the fiancŽe and the court-martial weren’t part of that story. As Stewart investigates, he discovers that the lives his parents claimed to have lived were far less dramatic, and far less heroic, than the truth.

Still a working lawyer, Turow is known for intelligent, gripping thrillers that lead readers into the shadowy corners of life. In Ordinary Heroes, he dives into a different world: an Army lawyer’s search for a truant OSS officer during the darkest days of the war in Europe, and a son’s search for the truth about his parents.

David Dubin’s former lawyer, now an elderly retired judge, gives Stewart his father’s written account of his journey from loyal lieutenant to infantry captain to accused man. David is assigned to investigate and arrest Maj. Robert Martin, who pulled off a series of raids that helped turn the Allies’ luck. But Martin’s clash with authority brands him as insubordinate and worse. David participates in a raid with Martin’s crew including an intriguing Polish girl, Gita. Following Martin’s trail with his intrepid sergeant, David parachutes into ever-changing territory, then leads a weary band of survivors in the Battle of the Bulge. Still uncertain whether he’s chasing a traitor or a hero, David pursues Martin into Germany, to the camp where he once again meets Gita.

A masterful, passionate storyteller who handles his latest literary challenge with assurance, Turow pays homage in Ordinary Heroes to all who ever dared pursue love or justice amid the horrors of war. Leslie Budewitz practices law and writes in northwest Montana.

Journalist Stewart Dubinsky, a character who's appeared in several of Scott Turow's legal thrillers, wants to write a book. Instead, he finds a story he'd never imagined.

When his father, David Dubin, dies, Stewart discovers a packet of David's wartime letters to his…
Review by

For more than a generation, British author John Le CarrŽ has written spy novels that both define and transcend the genre. His latest book, Absolute Friends, is his best work in years, another impassioned portrayal of the forces that drive global politics. Ted Mundy is a thistledown of a man, blown wherever fate and his own whims take him. His resume is endless: ex-’60s radical, failed writer, businessman, schoolteacher, spy. It is this last role that comes back to haunt him with the reappearance of his old friend and fellow traveler, Sasha, who offers financial security and a chance to fight the good fight once again. A mysterious benefactor wants to finance a school that will counter what he sees as propaganda supporting the war in Iraq. Mundy eventually realizes, however, that some things can look too good to be true. Absolute Friends is an absolute page-turner, yet in some ways, plot is superfluous to this novel. We are drawn into the plot because we care about the characters, from the simply drawn minor actors to the meticulously assembled protagonist. Absolute Friends is as much an examination of the human soul as it is an intriguing commentary on 21st century conflicts.

 

For more than a generation, British author John Le CarrŽ has written spy novels that both define and transcend the genre. His latest book, Absolute Friends, is his best work in years, another impassioned portrayal of the forces that drive global politics. Ted Mundy…

Review by

Colin Harrison, author of Afterburn and Manhattan Nocturne, is at it again in this provocative story about one man’s despair and his desire to maintain normalcy. The Havana Room, a delicious mystery that will keep you guessing, is perhaps Harrison’s most intriguing book yet.

The narrator is Bill Wyeth, a clever New York real estate attorney who finds his life upended after accidentally killing his son’s friend in a freak peanut oil accident. Wyeth’s life disintegrates before his eyes when he loses his job, his family and his sanity. Thrown into a pit of despair, Wyeth claws his way through Manhattan’s darkness, hoping for happiness but finding nothing. That is, until he visits an antique steak house managed by an emotionally complex young woman named Allison Sparks. Day after day, he soaks in his misery, eating at table 17 and idolizing the woman he knows nothing about. But that changes when he finds himself in the notorious Havana Room, a section of the restaurant known for its history and secrecy. Sparks asks Wyeth to provide late-night legal advice to her friend, business Jay Rainey. Stuck in a cruel world of what-ifs and social ironies, Wyeth reluctantly helps out. But before he knows what hit him, Wyeth is knee-deep in Rainey’s checkered past. Dodging Chilean businessmen and gun-toting goons, Wyeth removes himself from the situation before it costs him his life. The Havana Room is an obsessively detailed, tantalizing account of a man’s devotion to his family and his eagerness to both find, and hide, the truth. Harrison’s talent at creating quirky, well-structured characters is matched by his ability to interweave them into a plot riddled with fantastic twists and literary U-turns. All in all, The Havana Room is a gripping story about redemption and devotion that will have you rooting for the lonely underdog. Nicholas Addison Thomas is a writer in Fairfax, Virginia.

Colin Harrison, author of Afterburn and Manhattan Nocturne, is at it again in this provocative story about one man's despair and his desire to maintain normalcy. The Havana Room, a delicious mystery that will keep you guessing, is perhaps Harrison's most intriguing book yet.
Review by

Ken Follett has once again written a thriller that provides a steady dose of stomach-churning suspense, while throwing in enough dashes of humor to stave off the antacids. His latest, Jackdaws, immerses the reader in the dangerous, intrigue-filled life of a female spy, creating a gripping page-turner in the same spirit as his classic Eye of the Needle.

The setting is World War II, days before the Allied invasion of Normandy. Our guide is Felicity "Flick" Clariet, the tough-talking, smart-as-a-whip secret agent who regularly drops into occupied France to rally the local resistance forces. She’s the most experienced agent in the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), and she’s come up with a rather improbable plan to cripple German communication lines. Described as a "pretty girl with a heart of stone," Flick watched as an earlier attempt to destroy the Germans’ central telephone exchange turned into a tragic fiasco, forcing her to return to England after a humiliating failure.

Hoping to salvage her pride and reputation, Flick comes up with an unorthodox plan that calls for an all-woman team, and she searches out six women fluent in French who might know something about engineering or explosives. Follett has a grand time producing one unlikely candidate after another as the reject "spy wannabe" pile is culled for possible recruits. Rescuing one woman from prison and lifting a drag queen from a nightclub, the Jackdaws team is a mix of "one flirt, one murderess, one safebreaker, one female impersonator, and one awkward aristocrat." It’s refreshing that the girls never really jell in their whirlwind three-day training session; in fact, there’s a lot of yelling and cursing as they learn how to land a parachute and, more importantly, how to kill.

Follett shows his gift for putting the reader right in the middle of the action with plenty of authentic details and narrowly thwarted disasters. Once the team lands in France it’s a race to see if the Jackdaws will make it to their target before they’re either killed or captured. The Germans are in hot pursuit, and one particularly evil dude on their tail has a talent for torture. The Jackdaws act both eerily prescient and endearingly stupid, but either way, you can’t help cheering them on.

Nobody works the spies and Nazis M.O. better than Follett, and this high-spirited adventure doesn’t disappoint. Intelligent thrillers are a rare find, and Follett delivers every time.

 

Ken Follett has once again written a thriller that provides a steady dose of stomach-churning suspense, while throwing in enough dashes of humor to stave off the antacids. His latest, Jackdaws, immerses the reader in the dangerous, intrigue-filled life of a female spy, creating a…

Review by

Ken Follett has once again written a thriller that provides a steady dose of stomach-churning suspense, while throwing in enough dashes of humor to stave off the antacids. His latest, Jackdaws, immerses the reader in the dangerous, intrigue-filled life of a female spy, creating a gripping page-turner in the same spirit as his classic Eye of the Needle.

The setting is World War II, days before the Allied invasion of Normandy. Our guide is Felicity "Flick" Clariet, the tough-talking, smart-as-a-whip secret agent who regularly drops into occupied France to rally the local resistance forces. She’s the most experienced agent in the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), and she’s come up with a rather improbable plan to cripple German communication lines. Described as a "pretty girl with a heart of stone," Flick watched as an earlier attempt to destroy the Germans’ central telephone exchange turned into a tragic fiasco, forcing her to return to England after a humiliating failure.

Hoping to salvage her pride and reputation, Flick comes up with an unorthodox plan that calls for an all-woman team, and she searches out six women fluent in French who might know something about engineering or explosives. Follett has a grand time producing one unlikely candidate after another as the reject "spy wannabe" pile is culled for possible recruits. Rescuing one woman from prison and lifting a drag queen from a nightclub, the Jackdaws team is a mix of "one flirt, one murderess, one safebreaker, one female impersonator, and one awkward aristocrat." It’s refreshing that the girls never really jell in their whirlwind three-day training session; in fact, there’s a lot of yelling and cursing as they learn how to land a parachute and, more importantly, how to kill.

Follett shows his gift for putting the reader right in the middle of the action with plenty of authentic details and narrowly thwarted disasters. Once the team lands in France it’s a race to see if the Jackdaws will make it to their target before they’re either killed or captured. The Germans are in hot pursuit, and one particularly evil dude on their tail has a talent for torture. The Jackdaws act both eerily prescient and endearingly stupid, but either way, you can’t help cheering them on.

Nobody works the spies and Nazis M.O. better than Follett, and this high-spirited adventure doesn’t disappoint. Intelligent thrillers are a rare find, and Follett delivers every time.

 

Ken Follett has once again written a thriller that provides a steady dose of stomach-churning suspense, while throwing in enough dashes of humor to stave off the antacids. His latest, Jackdaws, immerses the reader in the dangerous, intrigue-filled life of a female spy, creating a…

Want more BookPage?

Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.

Trending Mystery & Suspense

There’s no going back in this apocalyptic home-invasion thriller

Praised by horrormeister Stephen King, Paul Tremblay’s shocking new novel, The Cabin at the End of the World, is an often graphic account of one family’s ordeal when their vacation is shattered in a cult-like home invasion. We asked Tremblay about the book’s origins, its dark path and his inner fears that helped forge the novel.

Author Interviews

Recent Features