Fast-paced, nuanced and full of action.
The search for the first city built by Cain pits secret legions and countries against one another in Maring’s (Carolina Justice, 2012, etc.) novel, the first of a trilogy.
Bill Weston, a professor of archaeology, and his assistant, Rachael Goldstein, believe that they’ve found the map to the city of Enoch, named after Cain’s firstborn son. When they also get their hands on an ancient staff from Enoch, The Society—reputed descendants of Cain—uses its drones and assassins to do its dirty work. While Bill and Rachael decipher a language of unknown origin and Detective Thomas O’Conner investigates murders and blood with indeterminable genetic material, The Society pushes toward its ultimate goal—reaching the Apocalypse. Maring’s religion-themed novel details theories of Adam and Eve, most notably the idea that Cain is actually the spawn of Satan. The alternate perspectives, however, are presented only as hypotheticals, never contentiously, and the story eventually makes room for military attacks and kidnappings, as nuclear weaponry seems to be The Society’s preferred method for instigating Armageddon. Unfortunately, female characters are excessively sexualized, especially Rachael. This tends to paint the men in a bad light; they’re the ones leering or making inappropriate advances. Well-constructed plot connections enhance the novel as terrorism comes into play during O’Conner’s investigation. Some small details add interest, including a female U.S. president; The Society’s counterpart, The League of Seth—Seth being Adam and Eve’s other son; O’Conner insisting that his assistant, Betty, come along each time he’s reassigned. The romance between Bill and Rachael earns its ink—the two don’t jump into bed right away, opting instead to internally debate anything they say or do with one another.
Fast-paced, nuanced and full of action.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2012
ISBN: 978-1478138730
Page Count: 504
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 3, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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