Terry Hayes and A.J. Finn have new novels for their fans
The title “The Year of the Locust” suggests a novel of biblical proportions. And it is.
Terry Hayes’ novel is an epic espionage thriller filled with wrath and retribution, faith and forgiveness, sacrifice, love and loss, all in the name of an almighty being.
It’s a mind-bending story of one man’s evolution from spy to savior when the world descends into “utter darkness.”
We’re living “among the ruins of the Twin Towers” in an “Age of Panic,” says main character Ridley Kane (an ironic allusion to the Bible’s first killer). Kane is a “Denied Access Area” spy, one tasked with missions where angels fear to tread.
As a young man, he was forced into a career with the CIA when he washed out of the Navy. He’s a “solo voyager,” who says his covert life is like “traveling through a sea of candles,” always trying to focus on the light. Kane may be the greatest spymaster of his generation because he trusts his prophetic visions and intuition as much as his training.
Hayes has constructed the plot as a quest narrative, taking Kane to the ends of the Earth and back to save humanity from a person who has earned his place in the “pantheon of terrorism.” The story is told from Kane’s point of view after his quest has ended, presenting his journey to readers from assembled narratives because “paper can’t be hacked.”
Hayes takes us on a deep dive into the workings of the CIA and the National Security Agency when Kane prepares for each stage of his journey. The settings are immersive and the historical details remarkable. From Afghanistan to Pakistan, from D.C. to Russia’s deep state and
so many places in between, each landscape where Kane journeys is described in rich geographic detail with compelling backstories that contextualize each region’s cultures and values.
Understanding the nuance of places and their cultural contexts makes Kane’s quest more complicated, his choices more fraught. These elements, along with a huge cast of minor characters, including Kane’s wife, Rebecca (also a biblical name), give the novel a stunning, muscular style.
At close to 800 pages, this is a big book with big themes and chapter after chapter of blockbuster action (and graphic violence), often ending in foreshadowing that cranks up the suspense. The first three-fourths of “Year” is the book many readers of Hayes’ first novel, “I Am Pilgrim” (another allusion to sacred texts), have waited 10 years to read. When the final part shifts into sci-fi, the sudden syncopation in the plot lines may throw some readers off. It’s bonkers and breathtaking.
I loved it.
And as Kane notes, the future we get is “decided by what we do now — moment by moment, step by step, life by life.”
— Carole Barrowman, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
In “End of Story,” A.J. Finn has finally followed up his 2018 blockbuster “The Woman in the Window.” Here, his main character, Nicky Hunter, is a woman (and mystery fan) who has been summoned to the
San Francisco mansion of a writer whose life is as shadowy as his bestselling whodunits. Sebastian Trapp, who is dying, wants her to write his biography and help him “solve an old mystery or two,” specifically, what happened to his wife and son, who both vanished 20 years ago.
One early pleasure here is not knowing just what sort of book this is. It’s set in the present, but it begins in the Gothic territory of “Jane Eyre.” Eventually there’s a murder — about 200 pages in. It’s difficult to invest in the disappearance of two characters who were gone well before the book begins.
But Finn is an assured, witty writer. He usually finds inventive ways to supply context — when Nicky’s situation is likened to one in Agatha Christie’s “Peril at End House,” he shows us how they’re similar. He also includes sly references to plot details from classic mystery writers, fun if you notice them but no obstacle if you don’t.
Name-dropping legends like Christie and Raymond Chandler can be risky. Legends raise expectations, and plenty of writers since have invented compelling situations that they couldn’t resolve. But Finn’s ending fits comfortably in that august company.
By A.J. Finn; William Morrow, 408 pages.