Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Pavone delivers another thoroughly immersive, stylish, and intelligent thriller (following The Travelers, 2016). In a move that is sure to please fans of The Expats (2012), he returns here to the lives of Kate and Dexter Moore, now living in Paris after former CIA agent Kate managed to extract her cyberbanker husband from a trap into which he had been lured by two artists of the long con, Julia and Bill. Pavone again unspools a tightly wound plot in which the levels of deception keep multiplying. It starts with a terrorist in front of the Louvre holding a dirty bomb. As the standoff continues, Kate, who is back with the agency in a shady, off-the-books capacity, starts digging into what's going on, hoping to solidify her position with her superiors, and soon discovers that Dexter may be fiddling on the fringes of cybercrime again, out to profit from the downfall of an arrogant financier. And what's with Julia and Bill turning up in Paris, seemingly ready to bury the hatchet? But burying it where? Yes, Pavone keeps us zooming through this book to find the answers to those and many other questions, but, in the middle of that race to the finish line, most readers are likely to find themselves slowing down a bit, savoring the richness of virtually every character who flashes by and especially taking time to contemplate Kate, who just may be the most fascinating, believably human fictional spy to appear since George Smiley shuffled his bedraggled self onto the stage nearly 60 years ago.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Like Louise Penny, Pavone is the kind of thriller writer who can cut a wide swath into multiple audiences, from genre fans to more-literary readers. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews.
Kirkus Reviews
"It is a dangerous time to be alive." Indeed, as this fast-paced thriller by seasoned mysterian Pavone (The Travelers, 2016, etc.) proves. A siren wails in Paris, a once-rare sound often heard in these times of terror. It's gone off because a jihadi has strapped a bomb to himself and is standing in front of the Louvre, "in the epicenter of Western civilization," waiting for his moment. But is he a jihadi? Who's put him up to this dastardly deed, and why? That's for Kate Moore, deep-cover CIA agent, "sidewalk-swimming in a sea of expat moms," to suss out. Kate lives in a shadow world, so hidden away that even her hedge-fund-master husband doesn't have a clue about what she does: "Dexter has been forced to accept that she's entitled to her secrets," Pavone writes, adding, "He's had plenty of his own." Indeed, and in the shadowy parallel world of speculative finance, he's teamed up with a fast-living entrepreneur who wants nothing more than to become superrich and run off with h is "assistant-concubine." Hunter Forsyth is about to announce a huge deal, but suddenly he's disappeared, whisked away by shadowy people who, by the thin strings of suspense, have something to do with that bomb across town. So does a vengeful young mom, strapped to a useless husband and bent on payback for a long-ago slight. All this is red meat to Kate, who's tired of the domestic life, no matter how much a sham, and is happier than a clam when "running her network of journalists, bloggers, influencers, as well as drug dealers, thieves, prostitutes, and cops, plus diplomats and soldiers, maitre d's and concierges and bartenders and shopkeepers." With all those players, mercenaries, and assorted bad guys thrown into the mix, you just know that the storyline is going to be knotty, and it resolves in a messy spatter of violence that's trademark Pavone and decidedly not for the squeamish. A satisfying puzzler, one to shelve alongside le Carré, Forsyth, and other masters of foreign intrigue. Copyright Kirkus 2019 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Reviews
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Library Journal Reviews
A good thriller isn't so much written as built, and Pavone is one of the genre's most consistently dazzling architects. This follow-up to
Publishers Weekly Reviews
Edgar winner Pavone's sturdy sequel to 2012's