I only very rarely give five stars to a fiction book. Science, sometimes true crime, biology, maybe some others, but only rarely fiction, although admittedly mysteries are favorite style for me, but they still rarely get five stars. This book, however, seriously tests the mold!
This is the second of the series, but it is not connected to the first. I'm curious as to how connected the next book is, and whether it really is a kind of sequence, or if it's a different story. ANYWAY, keeps the reader questioning and thinking, and wondering how the different "scenes" tie into each other, but the reader is totally pulled in and truly NEEDS to continue onto the next answer.
It's based in Ukraine, and given the current political crisis between Russia and Ukraine, it seems that much more current (although it's truly unrelated in reality). Different government agencies with different sources (FBI, state police, Interpol, Russian FSB, etc. etc) are all working together and against each other with no one knowing who is working for whom and what the actual truth is. Who is being used by whom, and who is on what side? And what IS this machine that is suddenly everywhere, and what is it making and how is it being used?
I love a book that keeps my brain working on overdrive!