THRILLERS
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Kennedy 35 by Charles Cumming (HarperCollins £18.99, 336 pp)
Kennedy 35
by Charles Cumming (HarperCollins £18.99, 336 pp)
This third outing for Lachlan ‘Lockie’ Kite, the spy who first surfaced in Cumming’s Box 88 three years ago, is as compelling as its predecessors.
It opens with a flashback to 1995 when Kite, then just 24, was on the trail of a war criminal who may have played a central role in the recent Rwandan genocide.
What happened had a dramatic impact on Kite and then girlfriend Martha Rain, as well as his career at top secret intelligence agency Box 88.
Now, 28 years later, Kite is married with a small daughter, living part of the time in Sweden, when an old school friend arrives with news of what really happened.
The revelation prompts Kite to go back to nearby Senegal in pursuit of a woman that MI6 nicknamed Lady Macbeth. Atmospheric and packed with threat, it thrills on every single page.
Twelve Months to Live by James Patterson and Mike Lupica (Century £20, 400 pp)
Twelve Months to Live
by James Patterson and Mike Lupica (Century £20, 400 pp)
The phenomenal Patterson, one of the great storytellers of our time, does not often produce a new character, but he does here to stunning effect. High-powered defence attorney Jane Smith is a brilliant investigator and lawyer.
She is preparing to defend a very rich but unpleasant real estate owner against the charge of murdering a family — father, mother and teenage daughter — when she is also asked to investigate a clutch of cold case murders.
She is then told she has a terminal illness and has 12 months to live. Smith is not to be cowed, she has a trial to win. So begins a tale of intrigue and deception.
This is not typical Patterson, but Smith will live long in the memory — even if we never hear from her again.
The Exchange by John Grisham (Hodder £22, 352 pp)
The Exchange
by John Grisham (Hodder £22, 352 pp)
It is more than 30 years since young lawyer Mitch McDeere took a bow in Grisham’s first best-seller The Firm — made into a film with Tom Cruise.
It launched Grisham’s stellar career as a writer, and here the character returns for the first time in a story as stirring as his first.
McDeere and his wife have two boys and he’s a partner in the biggest international law firm in the world, based in New York — even though he stole $10 million from the mob when he disappeared from their law offices in Memphis all those years ago.
Now McDeere is charged with getting $400 million from the Libyan government for a project in the Sahara. Nothing goes according to plan, and his female associate on the trip to Libya is kidnapped.
What began as a law suit becomes a hostage negotiation. Can McDeere get her back, given a ransom demand for $100 million?
Beautifully plotted, it starts slowly but rapidly picks up speed until it leaves the reader gasping for breath.
