Symphony of Monsters

Recently, First Lady Melania Trump announced that she was involved in negotiations with Russia for the return of eight Ukrainian children “displaced” during Russia’s 2023 invasion of Ukraine. She omitted that these children, along with thousands of others, had been abducted and taken to Russia to be adopted by Russian families, an act considered a war crime by the International Criminal Court. In Levy’s compelling, ripped-from-the-headlines thriller, one such victim is nine-year-old Valentyn. Precocious and mute, he lives with his mother, Veronika, and his 14-year-old sister, Lilya, in a small town in eastern Ukraine under Russian occupation. One day, two buses pull up outside his school. A quick-thinking teacher gets all the pupils to flee, except for Valentyn and a classmate who lingered too long in the bathroom. The two boys are transported to an orphanage in Crimea. There, Valentyn immediately plots his escape, while back home, Veronika and Lilya embark on separate, dangerous journeys to rescue him. Veronika heads to Kyiv to enlist the aid of Vital, a former patient and a skilled hacker. Unbeknownst to her mother, Lilya travels east to Crimea, accompanied only by a feral dog. Shifting among the different points of view, Levy builds gripping suspense while creating appealing, touching characters who deal bravely with insurmountable challenges without losing hope. If Levy’s hacker team, a group of nine cybercriminals featured in the author’s “9” series, displays unbelievable superpowers, readers will happily suspend their disbelief. As one team member reminds the others: “Save a child, and you save humanity.”