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A review by sherwoodreads
Need to Know by Karen Cleveland
Wow, this what about as white-knuckle a thriller as I've read in a long time, and it was pretty much all psychological, depending on the real connections between people, and not on guns and torture and a trail of dead bodies. (Which I am okay with, it's just that this wasn't one of those.)
Not that there wasn't torture, but it was all in the head, the worst kind, as in what happens when an unknown danger threatens your family, your kids?
Vivian is a CIA analyst, happily married, with four kids, one with heart problems that, along with a heavy mortgage, stretch the family budget. But she and Matt are great at tag teaming kids and shopping and meals and so forth, both devoted to the kids as well as to each other.
Vivian is terrific at her job, her current project to identify a Russian sleeper cell.
She digs in deep, uncovers some photos, and when she stares into a face she knows well, her entire world begins to unravel. Cleveland does a terrific job with that gut-gnawing terror, swapping off with mama-bear protection mode. Not every decision that Vivian makes is the right one, though it seems right at the time, her options limited, especially as new horrible discoveries come at her at every turn.
We get occasional glances into her first meeting with her husband, romance, and marriage, and the births of the kids, as Vivian considers her past, present, and future before every move she has to make. The quiet terror underscoring her attempt to hang on to a semblance of normal life is really well done. I simply could not stop reading until the end . . . and what an end!
Apparently Cleveland has worked in that shady world. The terrific detail, the subtle pressures and tensions, resonate as real.
Copy provided by NetGalley
Not that there wasn't torture, but it was all in the head, the worst kind, as in what happens when an unknown danger threatens your family, your kids?
Vivian is a CIA analyst, happily married, with four kids, one with heart problems that, along with a heavy mortgage, stretch the family budget. But she and Matt are great at tag teaming kids and shopping and meals and so forth, both devoted to the kids as well as to each other.
Vivian is terrific at her job, her current project to identify a Russian sleeper cell.
She digs in deep, uncovers some photos, and when she stares into a face she knows well, her entire world begins to unravel. Cleveland does a terrific job with that gut-gnawing terror, swapping off with mama-bear protection mode. Not every decision that Vivian makes is the right one, though it seems right at the time, her options limited, especially as new horrible discoveries come at her at every turn.
We get occasional glances into her first meeting with her husband, romance, and marriage, and the births of the kids, as Vivian considers her past, present, and future before every move she has to make. The quiet terror underscoring her attempt to hang on to a semblance of normal life is really well done. I simply could not stop reading until the end . . . and what an end!
Apparently Cleveland has worked in that shady world. The terrific detail, the subtle pressures and tensions, resonate as real.
Copy provided by NetGalley