Featuring: Peter S. Beagle, Charles Beaumont, Elly Conway, Aliette de Bodard, Hana Lee, Colleen McKeegan, Brody Mullins, Tobi Ogundiran, Erika Robuck, Karl Marlantes, Brody Mullins, Luke Mullins, John Sandford, Randall Woods

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Peter S. Beagle, I’M AFRAID YOU’VE GOT DRAGONS (Saga Press)

Dragons are common in the backwater kingdom of Bellemontagne, coming in sizes from mouse-like vermin all the way up to castle-smashing monsters. Gaius Aurelius Constantine Heliogabalus Thrax (who would much rather people call him Robert) has recently inherited his deceased dad’s job as a dragon catcher/exterminator, a career he detests with all his heart in part because he likes dragons, feeling a kinship with them, but mainly because his dream has always been the impossible one of transcending his humble origin to someday become a princess valet. Needless to say, fate has something rather different in mind…

Thought this sounded like fun. I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons is due to be published by Saga Press in North America (May 14th) and Gollancz in the UK (May 16th).

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Review copy received via Edelweiss

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Charles Beaumont, A SPY ALONE (Canelo Action)

Everyone knows about the Cambridge Spies from the Fifties, identified and broken up after passing national secrets to the Soviets for years. But no spy ring was ever unearthed at Oxford. Because one never existed? Or because it was never found…?

2022: Former spy Simon Sharman is eking out a living in the private sector. When a commission to delve into the financial dealings of a mysterious Russian oligarch comes across his desk, he jumps at the chance.

But as Simon investigates, worrying patterns begin to emerge. His subject made regular trips to Oxford, but for no apparent reason. There are payments from offshore accounts that suddenly just… stop.

Has he found what none of his former colleagues believed possible, a Russian spy ring now nestled at the heart of the British Establishment? Or is he just another paranoid ex-spook left out in the cold, obsessed with redemption?

From Oxford’s hallowed quadrangles to brush contacts on Hampstead Heath, agent-running in Vienna and mysterious meetings in Prague, A Spy Alone is a gripping international thriller and a searing portrait of modern Britain in the age of cynical populism.

This novel popped up on a lot of best-of-2023 lists, especially for espionage fiction — it’s pitched as perfect for fans of Charles Cumming, Mick Herron and John le Carré; so, I guess I should like it, then. It joined many of my favourite reads of last year, so I decided to get it. It’s the first book in the Oxford Spy Ring series, and I’m looking forward to reading it as soon as I can. A Spy Alone is out now, published by Canelo Action in North America and in the UK.

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Elly Conway, ARGYLLE (Penguin)

A luxury train speeding towards Moscow and a date with destiny.

A CIA plane downed in the jungles of the Golden Triangle.

A Nazi hoard entombed in the remote mountains of South-West Poland.

A missing treasure, the eighth wonder of the world, lost for seven decades.

One Russian magnate’s dream of restoring a nation to greatness has set in motion a chain of events which will take the world to the brink of chaos.

Only Frances Coffey, the CIA’s most legendary spymaster, can prevent it. But to do so, she needs someone special.

Enter Argylle, a troubled agent with a tarnished past who may just have the skills to take on one of the most powerful men in the world. If only he can save himself first…

This novel has been getting a lot of understandable buzz — it’s been developed into a star-studded movie, for one thing. There have also been a lot of rather amusing (and utterly bizarre) rumours that Conway is actually Taylor Swift (“Elly Conway” is a pseudonym). I love spy fiction, so I was always going to be interested in this. I started reading it on it release day. (Review soon.) Argylle is out now, published by Bantam in North America and Bantam in the UK.

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Aliette de Bodard, NAVIGATIONAL ENTANGLEMENTS (TorDotCom)

Jockeying navigator clans guide spaceships through the Hollows: an area of space populated by the mysterious but deadly creatures known as Tanglers. When a Tangler escapes the Hollows for the first time in living memory, each clan must send a representative to help capture it — but the mission may be doomed and the hearts of two clan juniors may be in danger too.

Việt Nhi is not good with people. Or politics. Which is a problem when the Rooster clan sends her on the mission against her will, forcing her to work with an ill-matched group of squabbling teammates from rival clans, including one who she can’t avoid, and maybe doesn’t want to.

Hạc Cúc of the Snake clan has always been better at poisoning and stabbing than at making friends, but she’s drawn to Nhi’s perceptiveness and obliviousness to social conventions — including the ones that really should make Nhi think twice about spending time with her.

But when their imperial envoy and nominal leader is poisoned, this crew of expendable apprentices will have to learn to work together — fast — before the invisible Tangler can wreak havoc on a civilian city and destroy the fragile reputation of the clans. Along the way, Nhi and Hạc Cúc will have to learn the hardest lesson of all: to see past their own misconceptions and learn to trust their growing feelings for each other.

I’m sure I’ve said it before on here, but any new book by Aliette de Bodard is something to be cheered and looked forward to. I’ve been especially enjoying the author’s novellas published by TorDotCom, and so this one has been high on my must-read list ever since it was announced. Navigational Entanglements is due to be published by TorDotCom in North America and in the UK.

Also on CR: Reviews of Fireheart Tiger and The House of Shattered Wings

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Review copy received via NetGalley

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Hana Lee, ROAD TO RUIN (S&S/Saga Press)

Jin-Lu has the most dangerous job in the wasteland. She’s a magebike courier, one of the few who venture outside the domed cities on motorcycles powered by magic. Every day, she braves the wasteland’s dangers — deadly storms, roving marauders, and territorial beasts — to deliver her wares.

Her most valuable cargo? A prince’s love letters addressed to Yi-Nereen, a princess desperate to escape the clutches of her abusive family and soon-to-be husband. Jin, desperately in love with both her and the prince, can’t refuse Yi-Nereen’s plea for help. The two of them flee across the wastes, pursued by Yi-Nereen’s furious father, her scheming betrothed, and a bounty hunter with mysterious powers.

A storm to end all storms is brewing and dark secrets about the heritability of magic are coming to light. Jin’s heart has led her into peril before, but this time she may not find her way back.

Hadn’t heard of this before it popped up available for review. It sounds a lot of fun, though: a “gritty fantasy… that takes a royal messenger on a high-speed chase across a climate-ravaged wasteland, featuring motorcycles, monsters, and magic”. Count me in! Road to Ruin is due to be published by S&S/Saga Press in North America and in the UK, on May 14th.

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Review copy received via NetGalley

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Karl Marlantes, COLD VICTORY (Grove Press)

Helsinki, 1947. Finland teeters between the Soviet Union and the West. Everyone is being watched. A wrong look or a wrong word could end in catastrophe. Natalya Bobrova, from Russia, and Louise Koski, from the United States, are young wives of their country’s military attachés. When they meet at an embassy party, their husbands, Arnie and Mikhail, both world-class skiers, drunkenly challenge each other to a friendly – but secret – cross-country wilderness race.

Louise is delighted, but Natalya is worried. Stalin and Beria’s secret police rule with unforgiving brutality. If news of the race gets out and Mikhail loses, Natalya knows it would mean his death, her imprisonment, and the loss of her two children. Meanwhile, Louise, who is childless, uses the race as an opportunity to raise money for a local orphanage, naïve to the danger it will bring to Natalya and her family. Too late to stop Louise’s scheme, a horrified Natalya watches as news of the race spreads across the globe as newspapers and politicians spin it as a symbolic battle: freedom versus communism. Desperate to undo her mistake, Louise must reach Arnie to tell him to throw the race and save Mikhail – but how? The two racers are in a world of their own, unreachable in Finland’s arctic wilderness.

I haven’t read nearly enough of Marlantes’s work than I think I should have — nor as much as I would like to have read. I still have his blockbuster debut, Matterhorn, to read as well. As someone who grew up during the Cold War, and also is an instructor for a university course about the era, I’m really looking forward to reading his latest. (And catching up on his previous books, as well…) Cold Victory is out now, published by Grove Press in North America and in the UK.

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Colleen McKeegan, RIP TIDE (Harper)

It’s been fifteen years since Kimmy Devine promised herself she’d never move back to Rocky Cape, the idyllic South Jersey beach town where she grew up. She doesn’t want to relive the crushing heartbreak and scandal that ravaged her world as a teen. Her younger sister Erin shares those feelings, the wounds she caused so many years ago forever binding her and Kimmy.

Yet here they are, back in their hometown: Kimmy, floundering after quitting her high-powered finance job in London to help her dad run the family’s hardware stores; Erin, reeling from fertility issues and an ongoing divorce, begging to be taken seriously by her parents. The more time they spend in Rocky Cape, the stronger the pull of nostalgia, and both Erin and Kimmy slip on the past like a pair of last year’s sandals, forgetting about the blisters when worn too long.

As the sisters celebrate their homecoming at their parents’ yacht club, a handful of familiar faces arrive to dampen the revelry. The next morning, a body is found floating nearby and long-buried secrets from their adolescence begin to emerge. Someone from the sisters’ past, it seems, is out for revenge.

Told in fast-paced, dual timelines, Rip Tide is a steamy, tension-filled tale of suspense about family, friendships broken and repaired, young love lost and rekindled, forgiveness and second chances, taking control of your life, and the dangerous decisions we make when blinded by desire.

Thought this sounded like an interesting mystery and sibling-relationship story. Looking forward to reading it as soon as I can. Rip Tide is due to be published by Harper in North America, on August 13th.

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Review copy received via Edelweiss

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Brody Mullins & Luke Mullins, THE WOLVES OF K STREET (Simon & Schuster)

Two veteran investigative journalists trace the rise of the modern lobbying industry through the three dynasties — one Republican, two Democratic — that have enabled corporate interests to infiltrate American politics and undermine our democracy.

On K Street, a few blocks from the White House, you’ll find the offices of the most powerful men in Washington. In the 1970s, the city’s center of gravity began to shift away from elected officials in big marble buildings to a handful of savvy, handsomely paid operators who didn’t answer to any fixed constituency.

The cigar-chomping son of a powerful Congressman, an illustrious political fixer with a weakness for modern art, a Watergate-era dirty trickster, the city’s favorite cocktail party host… these were the sorts of men who now ran Washington. Over four decades, they’d chart new ways to turn their clients’ cash into political leverage, abandoning favor-trading in smoke-filled rooms for increasingly sophisticated tactics like “shadow lobbying,” where underground campaigns sparked seemingly organic public outcries to pressure lawmakers into taking actions that would ultimately benefit corporate interests rather than the common good. With billions of dollars at play, these lobbying dynasties enshrined in Washington a pro-business consensus that would guide the country’s political leaders — Democrats and Republicans alike — allowing companies to flourish even as ordinary Americans buckled under the weight of stagnant wages, astronomical drug prices, unsafe home loans, and digital monopolies. A good lobbyist could kill even a piece of legislation supported by the president, both houses of Congress, and a majority of Americans.

Yet, nothing lasts forever. Amidst a populist backlash to the soaring inequality these lobbyists helped usher in, Washington’s pro-business alliance suddenly began to unravel. And while new ways for corporations to control the federal government would emerge, the men who’d once built K Street found themselves under legal scrutiny and on the verge of financial collapse. One had his namesake firm ripped away by his own colleagues. Another watched his business shut down altogether. One went to prison. And one was found dead behind the 18th green of an exclusive golf club, with a bottle of $1,500 wine at his feet and a bullet in his head.

A dazzling and infuriating portrait of fifty years of corporate influence in Washington, The Wolves of K Street is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction — irresistibly dramatic, spectacularly timely, explosive in its revelations, and absolutely impossible to put down.

The role of lobbies in foreign and domestic policymaking has long been one of my academic interests (I dedicated an entire chapter of my PhD thesis to it, back in 2010…). The Mullinses’ book was, therefore, very much of interest to me after I read the synopsis. I’ll be reading this very soon. The Wolves of K Street is due to be published by Simon & Schuster in North America and in the UK, on May 14th.

Follow the Authors: Goodreads
Review copy received via Edelweiss

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Tobi Ogundiran, IN THE SHADOW OF THE FALL (TorDotCom)

A cosmic war reignites and the fate of the orisha lie in the hands of an untried acolyte in this first entry of a new epic fantasy novella duology by Tobi Ogundiran, for fans of N. K. Jemisin and Suyi Davies Okungbowa.

Ashâke is an acolyte in the temple of Ifa, yearning for the day she is made a priest and sent out into the world to serve the orisha. But of all the acolytes, she is the only one the orisha refuse to speak to. For years she has watched from the sidelines as peer after peer passes her by and ascends to full priesthood.

Desperate, Ashâke attempts to summon and trap an orisha — any orisha. Instead, she experiences a vision so terrible it draws the attention of a powerful enemy sect and thrusts Ashâke into the center of a centuries-old war that will shatter the very foundations of her world.

This is the first novel in a new fantasy duology, Guardians of the Gods. Thought it sounded really interesting. Looking forward to reading it as soon as I can. In the Shadow of the Fall is due to be published by TorDotCom in North America and in the UK, on July 23rd.

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Review copy received via NetGalley

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Erika Robuck, THE LAST TWELVE MILES (Sourcebooks)

Two real, brilliant women on two sides of the law, in a daring game of cat and mouse…

1926, Washington, D. C.

In the Prohibition Rum Wars, the Coast Guard is losing. Eleven million gallons of illegal liquor a year have created a booming smuggling economy, with criminals wreaking havoc on American cities, and everyday citizens thumbing their noses at Uncle Sam. But the Coast Guard has a new, secret weapon — one of the husband-and-wife pair who invented cryptanalysis and trained Great War soldiers — to crack smuggler codes, intercept traffic, and destroy the trade, one skiff at a time. That secret weapon is a 5’2 mastermind in heels, who also happens to be a wife and mother: Mrs. Elizebeth Smith Friedman.

Bahamas

When Marie Waite — wife of a rumrunner and mother of two little ones — notices discrepancies in cargo, she insists on accompanying her husband, Charlie, on a run from their home in Miami to Nassau. There, not only does Marie witness her husband’s shortcomings, but she becomes enthralled by Cleo Lythgoe, “The Bahama Queen,” who announces her retirement while regaling the thugs at the bar with tales of murder and mayhem on the high seas. In spite of Cleo’s warnings about a “new man in the government” who seems to know where they are before they get there, Marie knows an opportunity when she sees it, and she wants the crown for herself so badly she can taste it.

So begins Marie’s plan to rise as rumrunner royalty long enough to get her family in the black. What she didn’t count on was that the more sophisticated her operation grows, the more she comes on the radar of the feds, nabbing criminals by the daily dozen. Once Marie knows who she’s up against, she’s more determined than ever to triumph.

On the other side of the law, Elizebeth is the only codebreaker battling scores of smugglers. From solving thousands of intercepted codes and ciphers, to riding along on Coast Guard patrols, to national travel, to testifying in court rooms — all while managing her household — the strain begins to wear on her. Once the work becomes personal, and she discovers Marie as a premier adversary, Elizebeth’s desire to catch the woman becomes almost obsessive.

From the glamorous world of D. C. Intelligence to the sultry shores of the Straits of Florida, The Last Twelve Miles — a tale of ambition and envy — is based on the true story of two women masterminds trying to outwit each other in a dangerous and fascinating game of high stakes.

I don’t think I’ve read many books set during Prohibition, so when this popped up and with that premise, I thought I’d give it a try. The Last Twelve Miles is due to be published by Sourcebooks Landmark in North America and in the UK, on June 4th.

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Review copy received via NetGalley

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John Sandford, TOXIC PREY (G. P. Putnam’s Sons)

Lucas Davenport and his daughter, Letty, team up to track down a dangerous scientist whose latest project could endanger the entire world…

Gaia is dying.

That, at least, is what Dr. Lionel Scott believes. A renowned expert in tropical and infectious diseases, Scott has witnessed the devastating impact of illness and turmoil at critical scale. Society as it exists is untenable, and the direct link to Earth’s death spiral; population levels are out of control and people have allowed disarray and disorder to run rampant. While most are concerned about deadly disease, Scott knows that it is truly humanity itself that will destroy Gaia. It’s only by removing the threat then the planet can continue to prosper, and luckily, Scott is just the right man for the job…

When Scott then disappears without a trace, Letty Davenport is tasked with tracking down any and all leads. Scott’s connections to sensitive research into virus and pathogen spread has multiple national and international organizations on high alert, and his shockingly high clearance levels at various institutions, including the Los Alamos National Laboratory, make him the last person they’d like to go missing. As the web around Scott becomes more tangled, Letty calls in her father, Lucas, help her lead a group of specialists to find Scott as soon as possible. But as Letty and Lucas begin to uncover startling and disturbing connections between Scott and Gaia conspiracists, their worst fears are confirmed, and it quickly becomes a race to find him before the virus he created becomes the perfect weapon.

This is the 34th novel in Sandford’s best-selling Lucas Davenport/Prey series. The cast has expanded, with his adopted daughter, Letty, taking a much bigger role (she also has her own, ongoing spin-off series, which I highly recommend). I started reading this the same day that I received the review copy. Zipped through it, and very much enjoyed it. (Full review soon.) Toxic Prey is due to be published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in North America, on April 9th. (No information about UK publisher at the time of writing, but Sandford’s Prey novels have thus-far been published Simon & Schuster in the UK; and his Letty Davenport novels by Canelo Action.)

Also on CR: Reviews of Phantom Prey, Wicked Prey, Storm Prey, Buried Prey, Stolen Prey, Silken Prey, Field of Prey, Golden Prey, Neon Prey, Masked Prey, Righteous Prey, Judgment Prey, The Investigator, Dark Angel, and Dark of the Moon

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, Twitter
Review copy received from publisher

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Randall B. Woods, JOHN QUINCY ADAMS: A MAN FOR THE WHOLE PEOPLE (Dutton)

In this masterful biography, historian Randall B. Woods peels back the many layers of John Quincy’s long life, exposing a rich and complicated family saga and a political legacy that transformed the American Republic.

Born the first son of John and Abigail Adams, he was pressured to follow in his father’s footsteps in both law and politics. His boyhood was spent amid the furor of the American Revolution, and as a teen he assisted his father on diplomatic missions in Europe, hobnobbing with monarchs and statesmen, dining with Ben Franklin, sitting by Voltaire at the opera. He received a world-class education, becoming fluent in Latin, Greek, German, and French. His astonishing intellect and poise would lead to a diplomatic career of his own, in which he’d help solidify his fledgling nation’s standing in the world.

He was intertwined with every famous American of his day, from Washington to Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, Jackson, Calhoun, Clay, and Webster. He was on stage, frequently front and center, during the Revolutionary Era, the fractious birth of American party politics, the War of 1812, the Era of Good Feelings, and the peak of Continental Expansion. It was against this backdrop that he served as an ambassador, senator, secretary of state, and, unhappily, as president. The driving force behind both the Transcontinental Treaty and the Monroe Doctrine, this champion of Manifest Destiny spent the last years of his life fighting against the annexation of Texas because it would facilitate the spread of slavery.

This deeply researched, brilliantly written volume delves into John Quincy’s intellectual pursuits and political thought; his loving, yet at times strained, marriage to Louisa Catherine Johnson, whom he met in London; his troubling relationships with his three sons; and his fiery post-presidency rebirth in Congress as he became the chamber’s most vocal opponent of slavery.

I’ve long been interested in John Quincy Adams — his life and career are quite fascinating, not to mention somewhat improbable. A highly intelligent individual, who was also quite incapable of getting a lot of people to like him. Very much looking forward to reading this new biography. John Quincy Adams: A Man For the Whole People is due to be published by Dutton in North America and in the UK, on June 25th, 2024.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads
Review copy received via Edelweiss