Vicious Circle

August 19, 2013
London security expert Hector Cross, now married to Hazel Bannock (“seventh on Forbes magazine’s list of the richest women in the world”), continues his battle with Somali warlord Tippoo Tip in bestseller Smith’s lurid sequel to 2011’s Those in Peril. Early on, a Mercedes van driven by a man wearing a Richard Nixon mask deliberately broadsides the red Ferrari that Hazel is driving on her way home to Brandon Hall, the couple’s 18th-century estate outside Winchester. After extensive sleuthing and a long backstory set in a prison, Hector tracks down the perpetrators of the attack to a hilltop fortress in tiny Kazundu, “the poorest country on the African continent.” Readers, especially new ones, should be prepared for descriptions of death in all its many gory possibilities, as well as scenes of rape (both hetero- and homosexual), child molestation, sexual slavery, and torture. The exciting action scenes and larger-than-life characters, though, will appeal to a broad range of thriller fans. Agent: Kevin Conroy Scott, Tibor Jones & Associates.

September 1, 2013
Following closely on the heels of 2011's Those in Peril, this oddly paced thriller finds Hector Cross, former soldier turned wealthy landowner and businessman, grief-stricken after a devastating attack on his wife and their unborn child. He vows to find the people responsible and to make them pay for what they've done. Sounds like the makings of a really good thriller, but Smith's stately pacing and his frequently overwrought writing ( Scream as much as you like. No one will hear you. No one will come to help you. No one will believe you ) makes the book a bit of a slog for readers accustomed to speedy storytelling in their action-driven thrillers. Some of Smith's prose might rub some readers the wrong way, too, when they encounter lines that seem distinctly out of place in a modern novel ( An hour dragged by like a cripple ). Recommended mainly for veteran best-seller Smith's devoted fan base; others will be disappointed.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)