Ice Islands

June 20, 2022
Hawksley’s implausible fourth thriller featuring Alaska native Rake Ozenna (after 2021’s Man on Fire) finds Rake, who works for a private security company specializing in investigating “transnational crime networks,” and his boss, Harry Lucas, closing in on Michio Kato, who has inherited the helm of a yakuza group. Rake may have found a way to get inside the organization through Michio’s sister, Sara, an advocate for Indigenous people, who sends Rake a frantic SOS. Flashback to a peace conference attended by Sara on Finland’s Åland Islands. That conclave is disrupted when someone slits the throat of a participant, who turns out to be the illegitimate son of Sergey Grizlov, the Russian president. To avert WWIII, Harry reaches out to his ex-wife, Grizlov’s former lover, to persuade Grizlov that the U.S. wasn’t behind the murder, even as Rake works to save Sara’s life. Awkward prose (“To escape a fabricated rape wrap, an orphan kid from Little Diomede was flying in to carve the mammoth tusk stored in his apartment for the Smithsonian Museum”) doesn’t help the contrived plot. Fans of intelligent action yarns should look elsewhere. Agent: David Grossman, David Grossman Literary.

Starred review from July 1, 2022
Native Alaskan Rake Ozenna works for the U.S. government on highly sensitive geopolitical issues requiring brains, courage, and resourcefulness, along with someone to take the blame if things don't go as planned. So far, Ozenna has been successful with even the most challenging assignments, but there's a new president in office, and he's shutting down what the NSA, CIA, and Rake believe is a huge threat to the U.S.--the rise of Yakuza crime networks in Asia and, in particular, their increasing influence over the governments of Russia, China, and North Korea. Rake's mission is to convince Sara Kato, daughter of the head of Japan's most powerful Yakuza gang, to turn informer. So it's a shock when the new president pulls the plug on the assignment, especially when Rake knows the Kato Yakuza has been helping Japan stockpile materials for nuclear warheads. Fearing the new president is na�ve or unaware of the Kato's power, Rake and his colleagues decide to secretly move forward and find a way to destroy the Katos. Another outstanding geopolitical thriller in Hawksley's excellent Rake Ozenna series (following Man on Fire, 2021), this one is carefully researched, action-packed, and suspenseful.

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