Review

Quick Review: THE SWISS AGENT by Anna Pitoniak (Simon & Schuster)

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Amanda Cole manages a new case and a potentially-rogue friend and colleague…

CIA officials Amanda Cole and Kath Frost must work together to untangle a global bribery scheme involving murder, wealthy oligarchs, and high-level Swiss bankers — unless Kath’s mysterious past tears them apart first…

Amanda Cole’s posting as the CIA station chief in Rome is normally too quiet for her liking. But when a chef’s body washes ashore on Capri, and Amanda learns he worked for a Russian oligarch with deep Kremlin ties, her alarm bells start ringing. Even more suspicious is the fact that the oligarch had hosted a private dinner with NATO’s deputy secretary general the night the chef died.

To get answers, Amanda calls on her former partner Kath Frost, a semi-retired CIA legend who is as brilliant as she is unpredictable. As they dig deeper, they discover a web of corruption that stretches from Moscow to Geneva to Washington, eventually uncovering a Kremlin-backed scheme to bribe NATO officials and tip the global balance of power.

But when a suave Swiss banker named Julian Schmidt emerges at the center of the scheme, it becomes clear that Kath shares an intimate history with him and that she may know more than she’s letting on. It turns out that Kath’s past is full of shadows, and the choices she made decades ago, in the gray borderlands of the Soviet collapse, are resurfacing now with devastating consequences. Amanda must uncover the truth about Kath — and whether she can really be trusted at all — before it’s too late.

This is the sequel to The Helsinki Affair, which was Pitoniak’s first spy novel. I’ve been a long-time fan of the author’s work — I started with a very early ARC of her excellent debut, The Futures — and I’ve enjoyed each of her new novels. I have been particularly enjoying this pivot to espionage. While The Swiss Agent isn’t the author’s best, it is nevertheless an engaging read, and I enjoyed it. Continue reading →

Quick Review: McKENNA’S GUY by Mike Lawson (Blackstone)

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A curious home-invasion case, and the detective determined to get to the truth

When an intruder with murderous intent breaks into Roger Smith’s modest home one night, the big brute gets more than he bargained for, ending up a bloody corpse staining Roger’s carpet.

Washington, DC, Detective Grace Lillinthal is summoned to the crime scene and marvels at the outcome. Why would anyone want to kill gray-haired Roger Smith? He’s the picture of respectability-a widower devoted to his family, an amateur painter, and a civil servant who works at the Government Publishing Office. When asked why he’d be a target, a clearly shaken Roger claims to be baffled.

But instinct tells Grace there’s more to Roger’s story, and when she learns that Roger-after killing his home invader and before calling the police-phoned John McKenna, she knows she’s onto something. John McKenna is a disreputable character of the first order. He’s the gregarious, larger-than-life owner of a local bar that’s a notorious den of thieves.

After one hired assassin fails, another’s bound to show up. The clock is ticking for Roger and McKenna to find out who wants Roger dead and why-and suspects abound. Stubborn Grace is as determined to dig up Roger’s secrets as he is to keep them hidden, and soon the investigation becomes a relentless game of cat and mouse. Even if Roger doesn’t consider himself a criminal, as chaos takes hold of his world, survival requires that he think like one.

I have been a fan of Mike Lawson’s novels for a very long time (ever since his debut, The Inside Ring), and his Joe DeMarco series is one of my favourite ongoing thriller series. With his latest novel, the author introduces a new protagonist and slight shift in genre. When I was lucky enough to get a review copy, I dove right in. And I’m happy to report that I enjoyed this very much. Continue reading →

Review: IT STARTS WITH ONE by Jason Lipshutz (Hachette)

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The definitive, must-read biography of Linkin Park

Linkin Park is one of the 21st Century’s biggest, and most important, rock bands. All it takes is one quick glance at the numbers— 11 Top 40 hits on the Hot 100 and six No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, over a dozen massive tours, 27 major award wins, 100+ million records sold worldwide, over 30 million monthly Spotify listeners —to realize that when it comes to the metrics of music consumption and fandom, there’s no bigger group in recent memory. And yet, despite their enduring legacy within rock, there’s never been a full, comprehensive biography of Linkin Park—until now.

In IT STARTS WITH ONE: The Legend and Legacy of Linkin Park, Billboard’s executive director of music, Jason Lipshutz, chronicles the innovation and influence of this legendary band, from their early childhoods to the moment their paths crossed to the genesis of their iconic first album, Hybrid Theory, and all that followed. Not only were they able to synthesize trends in pop and hip-hop amidst the post-grunge era and nu metal boom, then constantly reinvent their sound over multiple albums, Linkin Park’s radically vulnerable lyrics also helped usher in a new era of artists (and fans) more open to discussing mental health and prioritizing inclusivity. Led by their front men, Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda, who balanced each other out artistically, Linkin Park never shied away from songs that put their issues front and center, for the world to see and feel. Tragically, Chester succumbed to his demons and passed away in 2017, but the music endures—and in order to truly appreciate the band’s singular power to bring people together, we need to take a closer look at how exactly Linkin Park changed popular music.

Through in-depth reporting and interviews, as well as new reflections from their collaborators and contemporaries, IT STARTS WITH ONE explores how one band made such a big impact on modern music, effectively cementing Linkin Park’s long overdue place in music history.

Jason Lipshutz’s It Starts With One is the second book I’ve read about Linkin Park. The first was Jeff Blue’s One Step Closer (2020), a memoir by one of the music executives who discovered the band and helped them along their first steps towards international superstardom. Lipshutz’s book is, in my opinion, far superior, and a must-read for all fans of Linkin Park. The book should also appeal to anyone with an interest in turn-of-the-millennium rock/metal. I very much enjoyed this. Continue reading →

Civilian Reader is… 20yrs Old. WTF? Anyway, Here’s the First Review I Wrote…

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Twenty years ago today, I posted my first fiction review on Civilian Reader. That is… pretty wild.

Before creating CR, I’d been reviewing music for my own fanzine that I’d been running for about four years. I first put that together using Microsoft Publisher, and printed, stapled, and mailed it out to the handful of subscribers I had. After I discovered this thing called “blogging”, while studying journalism, I shifted everything online. (It’s just so much easier, quicker, and cheaper — no more multipacks of printer ink!)

I wanted to do something to mark the occasion, and more than just the one post marking the milestone, and have been mulling this ever since I noticed we were coming up to the 20th anniversary. I’m still not entirely sure what I want to do, so I’ll have to keep thinking about (hopefully) interesting and related things to do. I am currently toying with revisiting early books I read and reviewed for the website, and taking a look at “Before Civilian Reader” books that I love and think deserve a little more attention. (Basically, it’ll be an excuse to re-read some older favourites.) I’m hesitant to make any concrete plans, though, as I invariably don’t follow through on “reading plans” or “reading goals” for a variety of reasons.

The first book review I ever wrote was for Richard Morgan’s Market Forces, for my university paper. It was a good book, and I thought I wrote a pretty good (albeit too-long-for-print) review, which was then butchered for publication. What went to press stripped out the discussion of what actually made the novel interesting and worth reading. So, I decided to create my own space to review books. Continue reading →

Quick Review: MY NAME WAS GERRY SASS by Tiffany Hanssen (Atlantic Crime)

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A hitman’s daughter seeks answers and revenge following the death of her father

Gerry Sass is not who he appears to be. On the surface, he is the proud owner of a local country music station outside of Mystic, Iowa. Beneath it, he’s a mob-connected hitman-for-hire who launders money through the station WIOA.

One morning in 1986, his life of crime catches up to him when two men march him out into the woods and shoot him in the back of the head. Plunged into purgatory, he’s doomed to a painful examination of his life. Unbeknownst to the assassins, Gerry’s closest friend, a Catholic priest named Father Dan, witnesses his execution yet does nothing to stop it.

Meanwhile, Gerry’s daughter, Early, jumps into his prized Mustang with a thirst for revenge. On her adrenaline-fueled hunt, she comes to realize that she’s more like Gerry than she ever chose to admit.

In Hanssen’s debut novel, readers will meet three engaging and compelling primary characters: Gerry and Early Sass, and Father Dan. The story opens with Gerry’s death, and unfolds across each of their perspectives, and dips into different timelines as well. The author’s prose quickly pulled me into the story, and I blitzed through it in just a couple of sittings. Continue reading →

Quick Review: LAKE EFFECT by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney (Ecco)

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A story of two families navigating scandal

It’s 1977 and an air of restlessness has settled on the residents of Cambridge Road in Rochester, New York, a place long fueled by the booming fortunes of Kodak and Xerox and, for some, the mores of the Catholic church. When Nina Larkin is given a copy of The Joy of Sex by her newly divorced friend, she can no longer dismiss the nearly nonexistent intimacy of her marriage. Just as her oldest child, Clara, is falling in love for the first time, Nina finds herself longing for the forbidden: a midlife awakening. An intoxicating fling with a prominent neighbor brings Nina a freedom she never thought possible—but also risks the reputations of both families and unravels Clara’s world, just as she stands on the threshold of adulthood.

Years later, Clara, now a successful food stylist in New York City, has never been able to move past the long-ago scandal. Drawn back home by the pull of a family wedding and wrestling with her own demons, she makes a pivotal decision that turns her life upside down. Written with Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s signature humor and insight, Lake Effect is a wise and probing look at love and desire, mothers and daughters, loss and grief, and what we owe the people we love most. 

I’ve been a fan of Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s novels since her debut, The Nest, and she has been a Must Read author ever since. In the author’s excellent third novel, we get another engaging and moving portrait of a complicated family. Absolutely met my high expectations. I really enjoyed this. Continue reading →

Quick Review: MASTERS OF THE GAME by Sam Smith & Phil Jackson (Penguin Press)

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A conversational history of the NBA, by an an acclaimed journalist and an 11-time champion player/coach…

The legendary sportswriter and the Hall of Fame, eleven-time NBA champion coach separate the music from the noise in the stories of the greatest who ever played and their impact on the game

Sam Smith and Phil Jackson grew to know and respect each other in the late 1980s, when Smith was a Chicago Tribune sportswriter and Jackson was an assistant coach for the Chicago Bulls. Forty years later, the two remain close friends. In 2021, Smith helped the NBA arrive at a list of the seventy-five greatest players of all time in celebration of its seventy-fifth anniversary. Phil Jackson was asked to participate too, but he’s not a big fan of ranking greatness. They’ve been enjoying the argument ever since.

In Masters of the Game, Smith and Jackson chop it up about the basketball life, the sport, and the genius and the shadow side of the all-time greats: Jordan, Kobe, Shaq, Magic, Bill Russell, Wilt, Jerry West, Bird, LeBron, KD, Steph Curry, Bill Walton, and more. In a conversation full of high-grade analysis and high-grade gossip, we meet the stars of long-ago eras of basketball and see the mark race left on players and the business of the game — and we get a master class on character and the alchemy of a good team. And of course, inevitably, these two old heads get into the GOAT debate.

There are so many huge characters here, and Smith and Jackson can hold their own with any of them. Their spirit — sharp, wise, irreverent, honest, respectful of the lore and legacy of the game but never pious — and the clash of their different perspectives combine to make this book a joyous ride, a short course in greatness open to all students.

Masters of the Game is a different kind of NBA book. It’s a collaboration between Sam Smith, the best-selling chronicler of the Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls, and Phil Jackson, the coach who helped take Jordan to all six of his championships and Kobe Bryant’s five. When I first learned of the book, it was a very enticing proposition. I’m glad to report that it mostly lived up to my expectations, and offers a fresh perspective on the League and some of its brightest stars. Continue reading →

Quick Review: SPIES AND OTHER GODS by James Wolff (Atlantic Crime)

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The hunt for an assassin, an internal scandal, and a leader losing a step…

The Head of British Intelligence is having a bad day. Only six months off retirement and Sir William Rentoul is wondering if he’ll make it that far, what with the sudden descent of a brain fog dense enough to turn every day into a series of small humiliations.

To make matters worse, when parliamentary researcher Aphra McQueen is brought in to investigate an internal complaint, she discovers something horrifying: the murder of nine Iranian dissidents. The elusive assassin, nicknamed CASPIAN, kills across borders, forcing intelligence services throughout Europe into an alliance. Their only lead? An unsuspecting dentist in the UK.

Aphra McQueen seems to know more about the operation than she is letting on. What will she uncover? What is she really up to? And can she survive the unexpected events that will bounce her from London to Birmingham to Paris to Lausanne?

What happens when the head of British Intelligence starts to lose a step? This is in many ways the linchpin upon which the novel hangs, and offers some very interesting opportunities. A complaint issued by an anonymous whistleblower has put British Intelligence’s leadership on edge, launching an unwelcome and uncomfortable investigation into certain recent missions. What follows is a cat-and-mouse hunt for the truth and an assassin. Despite some minor quibbles regarding pacing, I enjoyed this.
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Review: ASHES OF THE IMPERIUM by Chris Wraight (Black Library)

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Horus is dead. It’s time to pick up the pieces…

As the Siege of Terra ends, there are many loose ends – Traitors trying desperately to escape, a monumental vacuum of power to fill, and a crumbling galactic government to see to. Those who hold on to power must decide how to wield it, and a new structure must be put in place, all while desires to exact vengeance run high.

Horus is dead. Terra lies in ruins. The Emperor is silent. Amid the rubble of the Palace, shell-shocked survivors emerge into the light of an uncertain dawn. New powers are present now, ones that have travelled the length of the galaxy to bring salvation to the Imperium, though they are as readily cast as usurpers as redeemers. The survivors of the Traitors’ Grand Armada, now scattered and desperate to escape vengeance, are riven with doubt and dissension, and their gods too are silent. Amid all the grief and confusion, some hopeful souls believe the war to be over and an era of renewal just ahead. But wiser heads know that this war can never end, and that the only question remaining is who shall rise to power within the perilous new age, and who shall fall.

The Horus Heresy is over, but at terrible cost. The time period between the rebellion and the “present” day of Warhammer 40,000 has, thus far, not been much-covered in the fiction and lore sections of the various games WH40k-based books. I think the most I read about the period was included in the rulebook for Games Workshop’s short-lived, but very good, Inquisitor game (which introduced us to Eisenhorn). Even here, though, not much attention was paid to the aftermath of the Horus Heresy and Horus’s death. It was with great interest, therefore, that I started Chris Wraight’s latest Black Library novel. What I found was one of the best books BL has published in some time.
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Quick Review: FRAGILE CARGO by Adam Brookes (Atria Books)

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A fascinating story of resilience and ingenuity in the face of brewing global war.

The true story of the determined museum curators who saved the priceless treasures of China’s Forbidden City in the years leading up to World War II and beyond.

Spring 1933: The silent courtyards and palaces of Peking’s Forbidden City, for centuries the home of Chinese emperors, are tense with fear and expectation. Japan’s aircrafts drone overhead, its troops and tanks are only hours away. All-out war between China and Japan is coming, and the curators of the Forbidden City are faced with an impossible question: how will they protect the vast imperial art collections in their charge? A difficult and monumental decision is made: to safeguard the treasures, they will need to be evacuated.

The magnificent collections contain a million pieces of art — objects that carry China’s deepest and most ancient memories. Among them are irreplaceable artefacts: exquisite paintings on silk, rare Ming porcelain, and the extraordinary Stone Drums of Qin, which are adorned with 2,500-year-old inscriptions of cultural significance.

For sixteen years, under the quiet leadership of museum director Ma Heng, the curators would go on to transport the imperial art collections thousands of miles across China — up rivers of white water, across mountain ranges, and through burning cities. In their search for safety the curators and their fragile, invaluable cargo journeyed through the maelstrom of violence, chaos, and starvation that was China’s Second World War.

An excellent history of China between the two World Wars. It took me a while to get around to reading this (not sure why), but I am very happy to have done so — this is an excellent, engaging, and well-written history. Continue reading →