All the Devils | Barry Eisler

Title: All the Devils
Author: Barry Eisler


I have a serious complaint about Barry Eisler: He is a master of suspense who clearly does not respect my sleep schedule or my to-do list. All the Devils is no exception--in fact, it's the literary equivalent of a high-speed pursuit you can't abandon until the last page. 

Livia Lone is officially on par with John Rain, which is the highest compliment I can give an assassin-adjacent character. She is complex, meticulous, and thankfully, utterly ruthless when dealing with the kind of men who deserve to be hunted down by a former child trafficking victim. This makes her not just a hero, but a force of nature.

The plot: Livia is desperately trying to chill out and appease Chief Best when B.D. Little shows up, desperate to avenge a decade-old disappearance. The villains? A psycho named Snake and Boomer, a congressman and the Vice President's son. Livia has to take down a political dynasty and a Special Forces killer with nothing but her incredible deductive reasoning, her fists, and a little help from her friends (who I am delighted to see are still around).

All the Devils is scary, compulsive, and guarantees you will lose sleep and gain unexpected knowledge about obscure U.S. geography. I need Livia's adventures to continue immediately.

If you enjoy tough female vigilantes and a narrative pace that risks giving you whiplash, stop what you are doing and read this book.

Five out of five stars.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Talking to Strangers | Malcolm Gladwell

Image
Title: Talking to Strangers Author: Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Gladwell's Talking to Strangers is a thought-provoking book that grabs you and doesn't let go, even if it doesn't necessarily convince you. The text explores a variety of intriguing topics, weaving together psychology, anthropology, and even true crime. One of the book's most fascinating sections explores how we misinterpret facial expressions, especially across cultures. The idea that a machine can assess criminal risk more accurately than a human judge is downright shocking. These sections spark curiosity and raise interesting questions. However, the book falters when Gladwell attempts to draw grand conclusions from these disparate examples. For instance, the parallels he draws between police misunderstandings and political miscalculations feel like a stretch. Similarly, the discussion of the Stanford rape case as a "misunderstanding" is rightfully met with skepticism. Despite these weaknesses, Tal...
Read more

The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

Image
Title: The Stories of Eva Luna Author: Isabel Allende Let me start with a confession: I am generally not a fan of short stories. I have fictional separation anxiety. I prefer one continuous plot where I can settle in, unpack my bags, and live with the characters for a few hundred pages. With collections like this, I tend to lag behind, emotionally clinging to the protagonist from the previous story while the new one is already trying to introduce themselves. It's exhausting. However, rules were made to be broken, and Isabel Allende is apparently the one to break them. Allende is good. She's really good. She possesses a literary depth unlike few authors I've ever read, sitting in that rare VIP section with the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. But be warned: if you are looking for sunshine and rainbows, you are in the wrong place. In true literary fashion, these stories rarely have a happy ending, a happy middle, or even a happy beginning. They are tragically beautiful in a w...
Read more