If you enjoy spy novels then the year of the locust would be for you. Told mainly from the point of view of a CIA agent who goes behind borders to find an important source. If you enjoy characters like Jason Bourne and James Bond you would be sucked into this world easily. There are a lot of quite triggering scenes but that kind of comes with this type of material.

In the simplest of terms, I really really really did not enjoy this book. I had this for an ARC and truthfully could not bring myself to complete it at first - constantly putting it down and picking it back up - but I finished it and hesitated leaving a 1 star review until I could really mull my thoughts over. I say this not in the sense of putting down the author, because I truly believe their writing is great, but this book didn’t do it for me; it didn’t check those boxes.

This felt like 100000 pages of a train wreck and also felt like the train wreck kept going, because I read it on a kindle and it was never ending. No matter how far ahead I got, I feel like another chunk would get added.

My biggest complaint is that there was way too much filler. This book easily could’ve been cut in half as the filler didn’t add to the story line, and taking it away wouldn’t have made a difference either. The 4 parts were a nice touch because it helped to identify what part of the saga I was in.

In this we have a super secret CIA agent who is assigned to kill the world’s biggest terrorist, goes on a submarine ride to the future, and some spores released into the air turn everyone into The Purge before the world turns apocalyptic, and we learn the apocalypse was all a subconscious dream to block out reality (or was it?), and then the terrorist finally gets killed for everyone to live happily ever after. I feel like the far fetched story line was minor parts intriguing and major parts messy.

I do believe this book had SO much potential and perhaps if the story line was tightened up a bit, it would have been so much better.

I have been looking forward to this novel since it was announced months ago. I am Pilgrim is one of my favourite novels and was very excited to read this one.
Then I got scared after reading some reviews and had to rethink my excitement.
I finally ready one review that quoted the author as saying to trust him and stick with it to the end. With that, I grabbed my copy from NetGalley and was off.
This book is amazing. The first half is similar to I Am Pilgrim. A Denied Access Area spy, asked to do almost the impossible. And there is one antagonist that he is tracking. He goes into areas that he shouldn't be, almost dies a number of times and is still relentless in his pursuit. The characters are very well written, you understand their thoughts, motivations and past. Because of that, you know how some will act before they do.
It has great writing, the action is intense and you feel anxiety as you read what is happening.
Then the shift.
If you aren't expecting it, it can throw you for a loop. I could see what was coming and held on.
And it was worth it. The way the author brings it all together is masterful. It wraps up with no questions and every storyline is resolved.
I am glad I decided to read this book and despite its length was trying to balance reading it slowly to enjoy it and tearing through as fast as possible to see what happens next.

My quick summary: What started out as a reasonably enjoyable, fairly average spy fiction novel suddenly turned into something else entirely. I’m giving it extra points for audacity.

This may take the prize for the most difficult review to write without spoilers, because I want so badly to talk about what happens at the 73% mark of this book. But I really can’t because that would take away the fun for you if you decide to read it, and then I’d feel bad. This book was well out of my usual wheelhouse, but I’d heard tell that Hayes’s first book, 2013’s I Am Pilgrim, was quite something so I decided to try this, his second novel.

It’s a really long book! I read it over a few weeks, and though it isn’t *great* it was pretty good. It reads as a pretty typical spycraft novel, with MC Kane working for the CIA as a Denied Area Access spy (the most deep cover, cool spy there is) in the Middle East as he tries to stop terrible things from happening on a global scale. I enjoyed reading his scrappy tales of survival.

There is little character development or backstory. When there was an attempt to explain deep emotions, it almost felt out of place. I liked picking it up a couple of times a day for half an hour and following Kane’s adventures; it sort of felt like watching a limited series TV show in book form.

Two things that made this book edge up out of average for me:

-There was a most amazingly tense scene of Kane almost dying that I read breathlessly

-The mindblowingly weird abrupt genre change/plot twist 3/4 of the way through

The plot twist is enough to make the entire book worthwhile just because it's bizarre. I was completely gobsmacked and now I will probably never forget this book. Ok, maybe there were tiny clues…little things that made me question the plain spy novel narrative a tiny bit…but not enough to see the twist.

Enough of going on about that. If you want to read this >800 page book, do it because you like spy novels, and for sure do it if you like the sound of the weirdness I’ve described without actually describing it. I think you’ll have fun.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster Canada and NetGalley for an advanced copy.

“I once went to kill a man.”

This is how we're introduced to a man called Kane, a Denied Access Area agent with the CIA. These are people who go where no one else dares, usually to attempt impossible objectives to protect their country.

Denied Access Areas are dangerous places. There's a lot of dangerous places out there but these make those dangerous places look like vacation hot spots. Especially for spies.

Out in the Badlands where the borders of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan meet is one such place. Kane has to travel here and the safety of America depends on it.

After a thorough vetting process the CIA has reason to believe that an asset with information about a planned terrorist attack, the largest since September 11th, is ready to trade his and his family's safety for everything the CIA wants to know.

Al-Tundra is the name used for a terrorist who met a thousand pounds of bombs years ago and was declared dead. It looks like those bombs didn't work.

Kane is sent to extract the asset and his family, and to confirm the identity of the terrorist behind the plot. It looks like al-Tundra, the man from the snow, from the wasteland, the man out of the bleak midwinter is back from the dead and ready to biblically punish the West.

The Year of the Locust, by Terry Hayes, is 800 pages of thrilling adventure and espionage. It takes you places you wouldn't expect, hopefully it brings you back again.

How to describe The Year of the Locust…

We read the story of Kane, a Denied Access Area spy for the CIA, as he rushes against time in preventing what intelligence tells them will be the next “spectacular” level terrorist event. Moving discretely through the cruel borderlands of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan he comes up against an adversary who would be 100% capable of catastrophic world-level destruction. ⁣⁣⁣
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Okay, full transparency, I was a little confused by this book. WARNING: some slight spoilers ahead…⁣⁣⁣
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This was an incredibly detailed book… Almost to the detriment of the writing. Because the author took such painstaking care to build an incredibly believable back-story, we didn’t reach the purpose of the plot of almost 100 pages. And the number of characters we needed to learn was very on par with a multi-book epic fantasy. It was a lot. 😳⁣⁣⁣
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While there were some compelling plot points ( I especially loved the rescue/escape scenes from the borderlands), it felt as though this was many books trying to become one book. To explain here is a rough outline of the book:⁣⁣⁣
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1. CIA Special Ops Mission
2. CIA Espionage Mission and Rescue Sequence
3. Redemption/Recovery arc with completely new and unrelated terrorist
4. MMC is fired from CIA because of some heroic thing he did.
5. MMC is recruited back to go on a secret sub mission (copycat of The Hunt for Red October)
6. The thwarted villain becomes some sort of super villain by inhaling some weird space dust. (Yes, outer space) He makes all his factory workers inhale and change too.
7. The sub is a Time Machine
8. The future is a horrific wasteland terrorized by the space dust monsters (the call them orcs. No lies)
9. One more time trip and the world is saved.
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By the end, I was so turned around that I truly didn’t even know how to describe what I had read. … I still don’t.⁣⁣⁣ Thank you to Simon and Schuster to turning me onto this title. It wasn’t a home run, but it pushed me outside of my comfort zone, for sure.

<b>Techno-Thriller on Steroids</b>
<i>Review of the upcoming Simon & Schuster Canada hardcover/audiobook/eBook (February 6, 2024) read via a NetGalley Kindle ARC (downloaded January 15, 2024).</i>

It has been 10 years since Terry Hayes previous novel [book:I Am Pilgrim|18144124] (2013) and the long promised follow-up of <i>The Year of the Locust</i> is here at last. Many thriller writers would have issued several books in that time. Terry Hayes instead packs the material for 3 or 4 novels into one huge epic techno-thriller which even jumps genres into science-fiction before the conclusion is reached.

It would be a huge spoiler to provide many details. Suffice it to say that like <i>I Am Pilgrim</i>, the new novel also involves a hunt by an elite espionage agent for a wanted international terrorist. The CIA’s Ripley Kane is a Denied Access Area agent whose missions take him into various no-go zones throughout the world. There are several subplots to the book, but the main arc becomes his search for a mysterious figure with a tattoo of a locust across his back. It becomes evident that “the locust” is planning what in terrorist circles is described as “a spectacular”.

The first 3/4s of the book does touch on various high-end technologies of surveillance and cloaking. Some of these are likely beyond current science, but not out of the realm of possibility. The final quarter makes a leap into the world of Einsteinian physics and into possible apocalyptic events. Readers of standard espionage thrillers may not be prepared for this and will likely even be shocked by it. But Terry Hayes is a master storyteller and you just have to let yourself go along for the ride.

I described <i>I Am Pilgrim</i> as surpassing Frederick Forsyth’s classic <i>The Day of the Jackal</i> (1971) in the ‘hunt & evade’ thriller genre. With <i>The Year of the Locust</i>, this time Terry Hayes outdoes even himself.

My thanks to publishers Simon & Schuster Canada / Atria Emily Bestler Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this preview ARC, in exchange for which I provide this honest review.

Author Terry Hayes is interviewed about <i>The Year of the Locust</i> at <a href="https://goodreadingmagazine.com.au/article/terry-hayes-on-the-year-of-the-locust/">Good Reading Magazine</a>.

Kane is a spy assigned to conduct an exfil and stop a an unknown event from occurring. Best laid plans and all, things go awry.

The story starts out strong and is a gripping and immersive spy novel. However, the pace starts to slow in the middle and the story descends into something very different and not what I was expecting at all. I’d go so far to say it was outlandish.

It’s a story that delves into ethics and makes you think about where your loyalties lie. There are lots of characters and they are well developed. But this book was long, too long and the plot just too farfetched to be believable.

I do want to thank Simon and Schuster Canada for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 stars rounded to three because Goodreads doesn’t do half stars.

4.5 Stars. I wish to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy of the 'Year of the Locust.' I was delighted and regarded it as a Christmas present! 'I Am Pilgrim' became a favourite thriller when I read it ten years ago. I preordered The Year of the Locust many times, which was frustrating. The release date was delayed and changed so many times that I felt it might never be released, especially when Amazon put its publication date as 2045. The much-anticipated book is finally arriving!

This is a very long book and is divided into four sections. The first three are spy exploits with detailed secret information about futuristic technology and weapons. It was apparent that the author did intensive research into this area. I found it challenging to understand what had already been developed, what was in the development stage, and what the author was imagining and making up. There was information about espionage, how a spy works in secrecy under assumed identities and survival tactics.

We learn about the Denied Access Area department that focuses on areas almost impossible for a spy to penetrate and survive. Kane is a man of many names and identities sent to the perilous area on the border where Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran meet. He speaks flawless Russian and Arabic and had a former job that will serve him well in the future. There are strong rumours that a fanatical terrorist group, the Arms of the Pure, has planned a deadly attack on America. A brutal terrorist thought to have been killed has resurfaced. Known as Al-Tundra, real name Kazinski, he is alive and believed to be leading a new destructive attack on America. Kane is sent to obtain information on the attack from an asset within the area, but the man is brutally killed before Kane can contact him. Well-founded speculation arises that Kazinski's attack will not only lay waste to most of the world but also transform the human survivors into something radically different. Kane returns on a mission to find and kill the terrorist deep in Russian territory before he can launch his treacherous, deadly attack.

The first three sections are thrilling action-packed, with well-developed characters. There is a vivid sense of place in far-flung parts of the world. The author is a master storyteller with parts of the spy story that seem incredible and parts that seem to be fillers. The story is exciting, and the tension never lets up.

Part Four makes a dramatic, unexpected and fantastical swerve from the spy story and changes it to something else entirely. Spoilers omitted. Many readers were disappointed, annoyed, or angry at the change. Some quit the book. In hindsight, there were a few subtle clues about where the story might be heading. I found it a strange switch, but not in a bad way. I did enjoy Part Four and the epilogue. There was an attempt at a scientific explanation. It was action-packed, preposterous, and filled with emotion. Some loose ends were nicely tied up in the finale. I found this section to be an entertaining, suspenseful and fun read. There were huge, alarming and vicious creatures hunting Kane and his colleagues, and they were hard to destroy.

Highly recommended for readers who enjoy the intricacies of spy stories and who don't mind straying into the realm of the fantastic and sci-fi.

Thank you Netgalley and Atria Books for the advance reading copy of this book.

After a very long wait after reading I Am Pilgrim, the next book has been written! I SO wanted to love this book.
I really enjoyed I Am Pilgrim. The first three quarters of this book were really good and similar in style to I Am Pilgrim. I founf t he last quarter of the book strange and too far fetched. I struggled to finish reading it, to be honest. 2.5 out of 5 ⭐️