THE LOST AMERICANS by Christopher Bollen

Stephen King. And “The Secret of Hemlock Hill” follows the discoveries of a modern-day Civil War fanatic.

Top-notch adventure fiction with a retro feel.

THE LAST KINGDOM

Berry, Steve Grand Central Publishing (400 pp.) $24.99 | Feb. 21, 2023 9781538720998

Will mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria wreak havoc on the new world order from beyond his 137-year-old grave? Not if Cotton Malone has anything to say about it. Malone, who retired from the Magellan Billet of the U.S. intelligence service after 12 years to open a bookstore in Copenhagen, still takes the odd freelance job with the CIA, and this one is a doozy. Derrick Koger, CIA chief of special operations, wants to recover a missing book and a document Ludwig set great store by. So do a number of other players: Prince Stefan von Bayern and his brother, Albert Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria, relatives who might plausibly claim to be the materials’ rightful owners; Marc Fenn, grand master of the Guglmänner (think secessionist KKK Bavarians); ex–CIA killer Jason Rife, founder of a fearsome organization called the Scythe; and inevitably the consulate general of China. Readers agile enough to pick their way through the historical tidbits and action sequences veteran Berry crams into every chapter will eventually discover, along with Malone, that Ludwig had his eye on a prime piece of real estate well outside his borders that’s become exponentially more valuable for the raw materials an extended this-much-is-true endnote observes are actually there. Ad hoc alliances are forged and broken, double crosses drive up the body count, inventive, overcaffeinated set pieces are teed up at a breakneck pace, and two different secret codes will keep puzzle solvers busy as Malone does his level best to disprove his own hard-won wisdom: “Hotshots never survived long.”

About what you’d expect if James Bond were an American who consulted with the CIA. Bring it on.

THE LOST AMERICANS

Bollen, Christopher Harper/HarperCollins (352 pp.) $30.00 | March 14, 2023 9780063224421

Following the sudden death of her brother, Eric, in Cairo, where he was working as a weapons technician for a “boutique” defense firm, New York fundraiser Cate Castle sets out to prove he did not kill himself.

Official word is that Eric was drunk, depressed, and delusional when he tossed himself off the third-floor balcony of his hotel. Cate, knowing in her heart that he would never kill himself, goes to Egypt to chase down the truth, prompted by a mysterious postcard from him. In Cairo, she immediately gets a whiff of the danger she is in when a young man posing as her airport driver attempts to abduct her. In due course, she learns that Eric was caught in the middle of a secret weapons deal. When his firm, Polestar, offers Cate’s needy mother and ailing stepfather in Massachusetts a sizable settlement, she reluctantly gives in to demands that she sign a nondisclosure agreement prohibiting her from airing her grievances or questioning Polestar employees. But acting on impulse, sure she is getting close to what happened, she continues her investigation—under the watchful eye of authoritarian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s secret police. Cut from the same mold as Robert Stone’s great political thrillers with its international intrigue, darkly atmospheric setting, and compromised characters, Bollen’s novel is afloat in self-recrimination. “We used to sell weapons to fight wars,” says a disillusioned former colleague of Eric’s. “Now we fight wars to sell weapons.” The scarcity of civil rights in contemporary Egypt is captured to shadowy effect, extending to the targeting of gay citizens like Cate’s