Remarkable characters propel a potent story brimming with action and suspense.
In this debut thriller, an American lawyer finds himself imprisoned on an island populated by Ebola-infected individuals during an outbreak.
Attorney Jack Gamble’s latest class-action suit is sure to earn him millions. While he’s eager for the financial reward, the lawsuit does have merit. Ebola outbreaks around the United States and other parts of the world have led to Madagascar’s becoming the hub for treatment centers. Stemming from a treaty with multiple countries, signatory governments now control the majority of the island, which the media dub Ebola Island. Jack’s class action involves people with loved ones who have Ebola and whom the American government has deported to the island, from which no one seems to return. The lawyer apparently has a break in the case when two brothers from Madagascar track him down with thumb drives of incriminating information, including land profiteering. Unfortunately, shady types from the Centers for Disease Control witness the interaction, and Jack is soon under arrest for suspicion of Ebola infection and on his way to the island. As his law associate/live-in girlfriend, Maddy Keller, tries to get him home, Jack realizes men from the CDC may be gunning for him on the island, an already treacherous place with crocodile-filled waters and cannibals. Pratt retains a high level of suspense in his story, as Jack, with help from the two brothers, has an arduous, five-week journey across Ebola Island to Malagasy, the only part free of treatment facilities. The island is a terrifying spot where inhabitants, often called “inmates” or “marauders,” are out of control. Regardless, the author’s illustrative prose sometimes lingers on Madagascar’s beauty: “There were small pockets of trees and the unmistakable tracks of streams or rivers where green vegetation flowed in a serpentine fashion along the valley floor.” Meanwhile, supporting characters shine, particularly Maddy and Jack’s friend and lawyer Ed McManus; they try to prove the invalidity of the protagonist’s Ebola diagnosis. And though the tale seemingly demonizes the CDC, two nefarious, formidable figures are the primary villains.
Remarkable characters propel a potent story brimming with action and suspense.Pub Date: Nov. 23, 2019
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 357
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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