Reviews for Killer thriller

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

That irrepressible scamp Goldberg is at it again. In True Fiction , published earlier this year, he introduced feckless spy novelist Ian Ludlow, whose outlandish plots so intrigued the CIA that the agency hired him to spin more of them as training manuals for agents. This time Ludlow is visiting Hong Kong, doing research for his next far-fetched thriller. Shadowy Asians are trying to kill him, he guesses, because they believe he has discovered their plot to seize control of the U.S. The problem is, he has, if inadvertently. The pleasure here is watching Goldberg mock the thriller form while creating a first-rate one, boiling with chases, fights, sweaty-palm tension, snappy dialogue, and glamorous, exotic locations this time, post-Maugham Hong Kong and its stunning outdoor escalators. It's really a sophisticated exercise in metafiction: commenting on narrative while creating it. The prankster lives.--Don Crinklaw Copyright 2018 Booklist


Publishers Weekly
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Authentic-seeming background and meticulous detail somewhat mitigate the comic book superhero plotting and writing in Goldberg's sequel to 2018's True Fiction, which introduced Ian Ludlow, a thriller writer whose scripts have the unfortunate habit of coming true, and his sidekick, CIA agent Margo French, who's adept at getting them out of the messes that his bumbling gets them into. The story alternates between the perambulations of Ludlow, who has come to Hong Kong to witness the shooting of his latest script, and glimpses of the violent actions of the Chinese cabal that has eyes and ears everywhere and is preparing to take over the world. The villains stumble across a copy of Ludlow's script, which inadvertently parallels their own schemes, and decide he knows too much. They attempt to kill him in Hong Kong and in Shanghai and then in Paris, where the Chinese and Ludlow have a final showdown, in which Margo plays a decisive role. Despite the nonstop over-the-top action, cardboard cutout bad guys, and a surfeit of pointless killings, some readers will find this a suspension-of-disbelief page-turner. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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