Review_FICTION
42 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ MARCH 9, 2020
Review_FICTION
participate in a
pilgrimage to
Mecca, thus
potentially
exposing mil-
lions to the
fatal infection.
Meanwhile, the
Saudis and
Iranians are at
each other’s
throats, and a
career NSC official fears that Putin’s
Russia is preparing a cyberattack that
would cripple the U.S. Wright pulls few
punches and imbues even walk-on charac-
ters with enough humanity that their fate
will matter to readers. This timely literary
page-turner shows Wright is on a par with
the best writers in the genre. Author tour.
Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (May)Reaper: Drone Strike
Nicholas Irving, with A.J. Tata. St. Martin’s,
$27.99 (368p) ISBN 978-1-250-24074-3
Bestseller Irving and Tata’s assured
sequel to Reaper: Ghost Target finds Ranger
sniper Vick Harwood (aka the Reaper) and
his spotter, Cpl. Ian “Clutch” Nolte, on a
mission in Syria just across the northern
Israeli border. While collecting intelligence
on logistics convoys between Lebanon and
Syria, Vick and Clutch come under attack
from drones, and Clutch is wounded. Vick
loads him into a U.S. cargo drone, which
later is shot down over Lebanon’s Beqaa
Valley. Meanwhile, Sassi Cavezza, a UN
worker at a base in Syria near the Turkish
border, takes pictures of an unusual map
in an ISIS hideout while seeking to reunite
a young Syrian girl with her family. The
map proves to hold clues to a planned
poison gas attack on a major U.S. target.
When terrorists later kidnap Sassi, Vick
ends up having to rescue her as well as
Clutch. The combined expertise of the
authors, both military veterans, more
than compensates for the overly familiar
plot and characterizations. Fans of military
action thrillers will settle back and enjoy
the almost nonstop action. Agent: Scott
Miller, Trident Media Group. (May)Silence on Cold River
Casey Dunn. Pegasus Crime, $25.95 (304p)
ISBN 978-1-64313-408-6
Dunn (the Hightower Trilogy) makesthey leave open the possibility that her
protagonists get what they deserve.
Tinkham’s skill for staging memorable
set pieces would benefit from stronger
craft. (Self-published)Mystery/Thriller
Safecracker
Ryan Wick. St. Martin’s/Dunne, $26.99
(320p) ISBN 978-1-250-20371-7
Wick’s propulsive debut and series
launch introduces New York City burglar
Michael Maven, whose longtime boss,
Elizabeth Rose, a sophisticated older
woman with a posh British accent, hires
him to steal a 1343 Edward III coin from
hedge fund owner Raymond Hemsworth.
During Maven’s break into the business-
man’s Manhattan apartment, he encounters
a beautiful assassin, Katarina Georgiu.
Maven, a martial arts expert, is no match
for the willowy, jujitsu-trained killer, who
fends off his attack, murders Hemsworth,
and steals the precious coin. She later cuts
Maven’s throat in his favorite bar, leaving
him for dead. After a miraculously speedy
recovery, Maven uses Elizabeth’s network
of criminal friends to track down Katarina.
But he then winds up caught in the middle
of a savage gang war after Katarina’s
employer, a vicious Chicago crime boss,
blackmails Maven into stealing a ledger
from the head of a rival drug cartel in
Miami. Plot-driven, gritty violence
makes amends for Wick’s rudimentary
protagonist. Actions fans will look forward
to more. Agent: Eric Myers, Myers Literary
Management. (June)★ The End of October
Lawrence Wright. Knopf, $27.95 (400p)
ISBN 978-0-525-65865-8
On a trip to the site of an “unusual cluster
of adolescent fatalities in a refugee camp”
in Indonesia, World Health Organization
doctor Henry Parsons, the hero of this
multifaceted thriller from Pulitzer Prize
winner Wright (God Save Texas), discovers
the compound decimated by an unknown
disease. Parsons sounds the alarm that the
virus responsible may have spread after
learning that his driver, who went inside
the camp, was allowed to leave the area.
The stakes rise when Parsons finds out that
the driver was headed for Saudi Arabia tounmarried daughter, and they fall in love.
With Bill scheduled to return to the
POW camp once the work is finished, he
and Izzy plot to run away and join Izzy’s
father and older brother with anti-German
partisans. A sympathetic priest marries
the couple; then Izzy cuts her hair and
dons men’s clothes to attract less attention
as she and Bill set out to find the resistance.
Instead, they’re captured by German
troops and sent to Lamsdorf, with Izzy still
posing as a man. As Soviet forces rapidly
gain ground, Izzy, Bill, and the rest of the
prisoners are forced to march west during
the bitter winter, a journey that tests their
will to survive and threatens to separate
the couple. Brookes demonstrates a fine
command of historical circumstances and
events but skimps on character develop-
ment amid the nonstop action. In a
crowded field of WWII fiction, this one
doesn’t stick out. (May)Stories I Can’t Show My Mother
Ann Tinkham. Napili, $14.95 trade paper
(236p) ISBN 978-0-99901-571-1
The sex-obsessed protagonists in
Tinkham’s provocative collection (after
The Era of Lanterns and Bells) are marked by
resentment, contempt, and misanthropy.
Stronger offerings include “The Magician,”
which transforms an embittered woman’s
experience with online dating into an
epiphany; and “He Brings Me Flowers,”
which injects some compassion into a love
triangle between a young divorcée, her
feckless artist lover, and his high-achieving
wife. However, a judgmental worldview
pervades Tinkman’s other stories. The
charms of “The Sweetness of Salt”—which
follows Alexis, an MFA grad turned erotica
writer, during her time at a seminar for
romance writers, where she hopes to hone
her chops with sessions such as “Arousing
Adjectives”—are undermined by a sudden
mean-spirted rant directed at the industry
members, described as “smiling suits with
halitosis.” In “Direct Deposit,” a 38-year-
old woman’s quest to conceive a child leads
to a farcical encounter at a sperm bank, but
the humor is undercut by the narrator’s
puzzling use of racial stereotypes. While
Tinkham’s stories often traffic in simplified
assumptions about how the world works,
whether about romance publishing or
fertility clinics, and feature a pervasive
malice toward perceived faults in men,