Dark Angel

November 1, 2022

Blockbuster Baldacci takes a break with Simply Lies, forsaking his various series for the moment to write a stand-alone (a million-copy first printing). In Where Are the Children Now? Burke springboards from the Higgins Clark classic Where Are the Children? as a grown-up Missy and Mike rely on what they learned during their own childhood abduction to rescue Missy's snatched stepdaughter. In Graham's Shadow of Death, Amy Larson of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and FBI special agent Hunter Forrest head to Denver to find the lethal doomsday cult they tracked through Danger in Numbers and Crimson Summer. In Robert Ludlum's The Treadstone Rendition, Hood brings back Adam Hayes, who rushes in to help former partner Abdul Nassir and his family, who are terrified of both the Taliban and the rogue CIA contractors gone violent as the United States withdraws from Afghanistan. Mary Pat Fennessey's teenage daughter goes missing and a young Black man is struck and killed by a subway train on the same steamy night in 1974 Boston, and there are no Small Mercies as Mary Pat's hunt for Jules riles the Irish mob; following Lehane's multi-best-booked Since We Fell (150,000-copy first printing). Two cold cases are Standing in the Shadows in this latest from Edgar and CWA Dagger in the Library honoree Robinson; in 1980, Nick Hartley is suspected of killing his ex-girlfriend and spends a lifetime seeking the killer, while in 2019 a modern-day skeleton found at an archaeological dig keeps Detective Superintendent Alan Banks and his Yorkshire team busy. In Sandford's Dark Angel, Lucas Davenport's adopted daughter Letty poses as a rogue programmer for hire to help the Department of Homeland Security forestall the takeover of Minneapolis's power grid by some ominous hackers. While facing down angry competitors when he moves to the West Coast and its City of Dreams, young, widowed mob underboss Danny Ryan visits the set of a movie depicting his crew's involvement in the New England crime war and encounters the actress playing his late wife; following Winslow's New York Times best-selling series launcher, City on Fire (250,000-copy first printing).

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2023
Letty Davenport seeks to infiltrate a group of freelance hackers in order to thwart their next project--or maybe to help it along. Ordinary People, an anti-MAGA cabal of lefties, has already pulled off a string of small-scale disruptions, and the word from the CIA is that they plan to take down the power in the Twin Cities, where Letty grew up. Sen. Christopher Colles, the unofficial boss who's been impressed by Letty's unflappable skills with weaponry, wants her to pose as the girlfriend of National Security Agency computer specialist Rod Baxter as he seeks to hook up with Ordinary People across the country in California. After their first attempt goes spectacularly wrong, their forces are beefed up by CIA operative Barbara Cartwright and Department of Homeland Security investigator John Kaiser, who worked with Letty in The Investigator (2022), and they succeed in getting close to Craig Sovern, a prominent Ordinary Person who's already been wreaking havoc on a number of railroad trains and plans to go bigger and bolder. And these aren't just any trains. Realizing that Ordinary People's attacks on the hate-fueled social media platform SlapBack may be a sign that their larger operations are providing an important service to the cause of world peace, Letty and her peeps switch from trying to bring down the organization to trying to protect it from the likes of Russian agent Arseny Stepashin and his trusted contractor Tom Boyadjian--all while keeping everything hush-hush. Yeah, right. Sandford alternates brisk action sequences with a steady stream of revelations that make equivocal players and their ambiguous relations even more complicated. A female-forward thriller that makes a strong case that smart, unflinching women should run the world.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 27, 2023
In bestseller Sandford’s strong sequel to 2022’s The Investigator, Sen. Christopher Colles needs the skills of investigator Letty Davenport, who once worked for the powerful senator, who helped her get her current job with the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general. Colles wants her to go undercover to infiltrate Ordinary People, a group of American hackers who infiltrated the Russian rail system. The group maintained total control over Russian trains for months until $50 million in ransom was paid, but now the U.S. government fears that Ordinary People may be setting its sights on their own country. Evidence that the hackers are poking around natural gas networks has led Colles to worry that they may turn off natural gas for a northern city or cities in the middle of winter. Given that restarting that heating source could take weeks, such a cyberattack could cause massive fatalities. Letty agrees to the hazardous assignment, only to learn her mentor has another objective. Sandford keeps his foot on the gas throughout, without stretching plausibility too far. Lee Child fans will be hooked. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM Partners.

April 15, 2023
A young woman is in a gun standoff. She knows there's going to be shooting, and she's going to win. But not now. Too loud. She waits until the CD she's put on gets to the monster drum solo. Then BAM! One shot-up bad guy. This is the second in author Sandford's series featuring Letty Davenport, government agent and adopted daughter of Sandford's series megastar Lucas Davenport. Both series show Sandford's mastery of character and action. Here Letty, a fellow gun expert, and a computer wizard go undercover to figure out what's doing with a hacker group called Ordinary People. Turns out the war in Ukraine is on the table in a bad way. Still more bad guys wanting a chunk of the action enter, leading to a 50-page chase and firefight, along with endless one-liners. Readers may wonder why, with all this comedy, the tension has them clutching the arms of their chairs. That's Sandford at work. He even finds a way to tell us why WWI flyers wore those silk scarves. Kept their necks from chafing.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 1, 2023

After investigator Letty Davenport partners with agent Barb Cartwright, she's invited to a private club, the Washington Ladies Peace-Maker Society. It's a shooting club with a difference; the women are all killers. Her friendships come in handy when she needs backup on her next assignment. The National Security Agency asks Letty to partner with a man who specializes in computers. The two will head to California, trying to meet up with a group called Ordinary People, hackers who might be planning to shut down the natural gas supply in a northern city. But Letty doesn't trust the NSA connection. When she discovers that the hackers have messed with Russian train schedules, she realizes she's been picked to protect the hackers on a secret assignment--hack into the Russian train schedules as Russia plans to invade Ukraine. However, Letty will need to bring in more protection when the Russians attempt to stop the hackers. VERDICT While the Russia/Ukraine hacking scheme already seems historical, the second Letty Davenport thriller (after The Investigator) will satisfy Sandford's numerous readers, with its high-octane action and gallows humor.--Lesa Holstine

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.