Three-edged sword A novel

In the third Riley Wolfe caper novel (after Fool Me Twice, 2020), things are getting personal. Someone has abducted two people about whom Riley cares very much, and that person is forcing superthief Riley to do something he'd really rather not do: plan and execute a major heist--snatching a flash drive from a Soviet missile silo--on a too-tight time clock. Riley is a meticulous thief, and he knows that if he goes into a situation before he's ready, bad things might happen. As they do here, in one of the best books in the series. Lindsay is best known, of course, as the creator of Dexter, the blood-spatter expert who's a serial killer in his spare time, and, while the Wolfe novels haven't yet reached Dexter levels of grab-you-by-the-throat writing, they're getting very close, as Lindsay continues to flesh out his hero, a professional crook who really isn't a bad fellow. Fans of Donald E. Westlake's thief-hero Parker, star of the series Westlake wrote under the pseudonym Richard Stark, will want to get to know Riley right away.

In bestseller Lindsay's uneven third outing for master thief Riley Wolfe (after 2020's Fool Me Twice), rogue CIA team leader Chase Prescott coerces Wolfe into infiltrating the highly secure island of a Russian icon collector off the Lithuanian coast to steal a jump drive containing top-secret information that's stored in an impregnable vault. As payment, Wolfe can help himself to an icon. Meanwhile, Prescott kidnaps Wolfe's mother and his art forger friend, Monique, both of whom are in a coma and unable to defend themselves, to use as leverage to ensure Wolfe's cooperation. What seems like an impossible challenge, however, becomes yet another adventure in which Wolfe must pull out all the stops to steal the drive and circumvent Prescott's treachery. The efforts of FBI agent Frank Delgado and his hacker sidekick, Miranda Shaleki, to locate Wolfe's mother add to the suspense, and the tip of the cap to Edgar Allan Poe at the climax is effectively chilling, but the constant switches in point of view chop up the narrative flow, and the chapters involving Monique distract from the main plotline. Hopefully, Lindsay will return to form next time. Agent: Michael Carlisle, InkWell Management. (Dec.)

Wily if lovable Riley Wolfe returns for a third adventure, eager to emulate Robin Hood by stealing from the 0.1 percent. And this theft is his biggest yet despite rumblings from a growing list of enemies. From the author who gave us the durable Dexter.

The stakes continue to rise in master thief Riley Wolfe's third go-big-or-go-bust adventure. The Russians, as is their wont, have developed a fearless new weapons system, and American operative Chase Prescott has flipped GRU agent Ivo Balodis to secure its particulars. Instead, Balodis has kept the thumb drive containing the necessary information to himself and retreated to his Fortress of Solitude, a private island off the coast of his native Lithuania. Will Riley help Prescott steal the thumb drive from its impregnable hiding place out of patriotism? No thanks. How about the chance to help himself to Ivo's collection of priceless 17th-century icons painted by Simon Ushakov? Ah, that's more like it--and Riley, after giving Prescott the slip because he likes working on his own, comes up with the idea of introducing himself, in suitably heavy disguise, to his target by stealing another Ushakov icon and offering it to him at a bargain-basement price. Prescott, who's rightly less than convinced that he can trust Riley, thinks he's sealing his allegiance by kidnapping Riley's mother, who's been in a coma for years, and his art-forger friend Monique, who's just emerged from a coma after her ordeal in Fool Me Twice (2020), and holding them hostage. But of course what he's really doing is antagonizing his would-be tool, and you definitely don't want to antagonize Riley. Lindsay supplies an effortless, weightless supply of complications apparently designed to keep the overscaled enterprise, which has a lot more than three edges, from shutting down too soon. The result is a perfect beach read for anyone bound for the islands of Lithuania. The name is Wolfe, Riley Wolfe, and his latest caper will leave fans stirred but not shaken. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.