A slow-moving, sometimes-clumsy thriller that gathers momentum to deliver a rewarding conspiracy theory.
A legendary “suicide” after the Bre-X gold mine scandal gets a remarkable twist in this suspense tale.
Lenarciak’s (Napoleon’s Eagle Prophecy, 2015, etc.) fifth novel is a variation on his fourth, which also explored the international intrigue surrounding Bre-X geologist Michael de Guzman and his supposed suicide. This one is told as a “dead man’s tale” or an entertaining tall tale—or a confession—over drinks between two men on the fringes of the company whose $6 billion gold fraud scandal rocked 1990s Canada. Bre-X Minerals Ltd. stock had risen astronomically on speculation of unparalleled amounts of gold being mined in Busang, Borneo, then crashed in 1997 when it was discovered that de Guzman had salted the core samples with gold panned from Borneo’s rivers. The novel’s protagonist (the author himself), a mining investor, meets, through Opus Dei in Rome, Akiro Guzzo, a mysterious businessman. The two agree to have lunch in Rome to discuss business, yet as the date approaches, Lenarciak becomes suspicious, realizing that Guzzo’s life story doesn’t add up. When Lenarciak discovers a connection between Guzzo and the Bre-X scandal, the protagonist fears that his life may be in danger from the Mafia at the businessman’s behest, perhaps seeking revenge for fortunes lost. In disguise, Lenarciak hovers in search of enemies, then decides to keep the rendezvous in Rome and ends up hearing from Guzzo a story stranger and more convoluted than any article reported in the press or written by historians. But is it true? Or is de Guzman really dead? This odd, sophisticated mixture of true and revisionist history leaves the reader without any clear sympathies: no one is morally pure, especially not the Roman Catholic Church, yet womanizer de Guzman is as motivated by his desire to provide for his family as by greed. The expository dialogue plods at times but becomes intriguing when Guzzo reveals the interlacing relationships of the Indonesian government, off-shore accounts, illegitimate children, and local politics. The author unnecessarily repeats his back-cover synopsis several times—these references could be cut, as they may frustrate readers before the plot twists finally accumulate.
A slow-moving, sometimes-clumsy thriller that gathers momentum to deliver a rewarding conspiracy theory.Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Book Venture Publishing LLC
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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