In Ace Atkins's rollicking adventure, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, a scheme by Russian spies brings together a once-famous crime writer, a teenager who suspects his mother's new boyfriend is a KGB agent, and an FBI agent investigating the murder of an employee at Scientific Atlanta who had access to top-secret information.
In 1985 Atlanta, Ga., Peter knows there's something funny about Gary, his mother's boyfriend. He has a hard-to-place accent and both a gun and a cassette of Russian music in his car. Peter's mother works for a company with Department of Defense contracts, and Peter thinks Gary is a spy. He approaches Dennis X. Hotchner, who recently wrote a magazine piece about KGB spies, to ask him for help. Dennis initially refuses to buy it, but after prodding from his former-defensive-end-turned-drag-queen friend, Jackie, and events that suggest Peter is in genuine danger, the author and the Tina Turner impersonator join in, becoming embroiled in an FBI investigation that leads to a nest of Soviet agents and double agents.
Atkins (The Sinners; The Innocents) weaves a splendidly intricate web of intersecting plots that is as successful for its comedy as for its nonstop action. Nearly every chapter contains the sort of well-played surprise that feels inevitable as soon as it is revealed, and delightfully funny dialogue ensures that nobody thinks the over-the-top antics are meant to be taken too seriously. Fans of Carl Hiaasen's and Dave Barry's thrillers should look a little further north from Florida to experience Everybody Wants to Rule the World. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library