Farnsworth, author of the fantastical Nathaniel Cade series (Red, White, and Blood, 2012, etc.), stands to expand his...
Hired by billionaire Everett Sloan to determine whether a whiz kid who used to work for his data-mining outfit stole company secrets to start his own operation, mind-reading investigator John Smith finds himself targeted by a conspiratorial group with secret CIA connections.
Years removed from quitting the CIA, which trained him on how to use his skills, Smith is no ordinary telepath. Not only can he "hear" what people are thinking, he also can project thoughts and fears into their heads. The problem is, when he defends himself from an attacker by implanting a traumatizing memory or crippling feeling, he himself retains a percentage of the pain or suffering. High-tech bad boy Eli Preston ("the next Zuckerberg"), the data thief, is so concerned that Smith will reveal his illicit government ties that he wants him 100 percent dead. Though Smith is no slouch at fisticuffs, his powers are neutralized when thugs are delivering blows to his head. He also suffers without his meds, haunted by the memory of interrogators torturing and killing a prisoner in Bagram who was telling the truth when he said he didn't know where Osama bin Laden was. Now on the run, his credit and bank accounts voided by the powerful bad guys, Smith gathers up strength to take on a wider-reaching threat than he envisioned. He gets help and then some from Kelsey Foster, a fetching, now-former associate of Preston's. Though Farnsworth takes his time detailing Smith's past and the military's interest in "mind warfare," that doesn't diminish the appeal of his flip, unusually compelling hero or the up-to-the-minute freshness of the story.
Farnsworth, author of the fantastical Nathaniel Cade series (Red, White, and Blood, 2012, etc.), stands to expand his following with this clever, offbeat thriller.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-241640-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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