Jackpot

January 1, 2021

In Bentley's Tom Clancy Target Acquired, Jack Ryan Jr. is on a seemingly simple stakeout in Israel when he is targeted by trained killers. Ellroy delivers Widespread Panic in his latest, which features a former cop negotiating his way through dark-and-dirty Fifties Los Angeles as a private eye. In The Maze, retired NYPD Homicide Detective John Corey answers the call to help investigate when bodies are found buried on the beach. Broadcast journalist-turned-cybersecurity expert Ali Reynolds must deal with both a serial killer and a former employee of her husband just out of prison in Jance's Unfinished Business (100,000-copy first printing). In Johansen's The Bullet, it's bad news for forensic sculptor Eve Duncan when the former wife of her beloved Joe Quinn returns with dangerous secrets (100,000-copy first printing). In Lippman's tense fantasia, novelist Gerry Andersen is trapped in bed after an accident and fears he is losing his mind when he thinks he's getting phone calls from the main character in his big-deal novel Dream Girl (200,000-copy first printing). From mega-best-selling Patterson and former President Clinton, The President's Daughter features a new family in the White House--and a former White House family targeted by an international assassin (one-million-copy first printing). Joined by Quartermous, Woods hits the Jackpot with another Teddy Fay thriller, as Teddy investigates threats to a film festival in sumptuous Macau.

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April 1, 2021
CIA operative-turned-killer Teddy Fay, aka Hollywood producer Billy Barnett, gets his fifth sort-of-starring role in a splashy, muddled thriller set in Macau. Centurion Studios president Ben Bacchetti and his partner, director Peter Barrington, see no reason why their visit to the Macau Film Festival should be all business. They're dismayed when their visit to a baccarat table at the Golden Desert Casino and Resort is used as material for a deep-fake video that seems to show them cheating. The video, which has evidently been engineered by Bing-Wen "Bingo" Jo, bids fair drag them into the iron grip of fearsome media/casino mogul Arrow Donaldson, for whom Bingo works off the books on matters concerning digital technology and violence. But Centurion producer Teddy, who's every bit the equal of Bingo and Donaldson fixer Zhou "Ziggy" Peng put together, is on the case. His improbable sometime partners are Li Feng, the heiress and CFO of QuiTel who's fighting to keep her company exempt from the U.S. blacklist of competing Chinese telecom corporations suspected of spying, and Millie Martindale, a CIA administrator who's a lot more resourceful than most administrators you'll ever meet. The first partnership between Woods and Quertermous is full of casino underlings, biddable cops, fake shootings, and doubles living and dead. But the plot never thickens, and readers confident that Teddy will live to fight, pressure, cheat, and kill another day may be indifferent to the fate of the nefarious forces arrayed against him. The first of Woods' many collaborations to be unquestionably inferior to his solo performances.

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May 1, 2021
Woods' latest novel is the fifth entry in his Teddy Fay series (after Bombshell, 2020), cowritten with new partner Quertermous. The book opens with a jet-lagged Teddy napping during a Hong Kong layover on the way to Los Angeles. He is abruptly awakened by an attack from a mysterious woman, Dale Gai, who later claims to need his help, plunging Teddy--and readers--into nonstop action, as he navigates both the glitzy world of Macau's film scene and the criminal shadowland mirroring it. Fans will recognize several of Teddy's friends, including the Bachettis and the Barringtons, who reach out to him seeking assistance clearing their names after a deepfake video threatens their reputations. The roster of characters includes a brash billionaire, frustrated CIA agent Millie, and Chinese tech heiress and CFO Li Feng. Duplicity and shifting allegiances abound throughout, and the risk of heightened U.S.-Chinese tensions looms. Good for readers who enjoy James Patterson and Harlan Coben.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.