An entertaining, action-packed tale involving viruses and terrorism.
In this thriller, a civil engineer faces a familiar nemesis as he tries to stop a biological weapon.
Jake Bendel is at a restaurant one night when he is briefly abducted by Gunther Pertile, a sniper who also happens to be on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. What Jake does not know—after being drugged, causing him to forget his kidnapping—is that Gunther works for Viktor Johnston, an Islamic terrorist who has a history with the civil engineer. Jake is working with the governor of California to implement a desalination system to stave off an impending water crisis. But after his now-forgotten abduction and an attempt to murder him and his friend Paige Terner, Jake discovers someone is tampering with the chlorine tanks in his plants, resulting in “instances of poisoning.” Viktor and his crew are tainting the water with two viruses, one of which aims to modify the human genome. Later, Jake is attacked by drones while on the road, which leads the FBI to discover that there might be a mole at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Now, Jake, Paige, and a team of FBI agents will try to stop Viktor once and for all. This second installment of Bennecke’s Jake Bendel series is rooted in a genuine fear regarding the climate crisis: a lack of water. The urgency for clean drinking water—particularly in drought-ridden states—paired with a diabolical terrorist and Jake’s government associations, makes this work a biological and environmental thriller. The prose is easy to follow, though not overly descriptive, with enough expository information for those who may have missed the story’s predecessor. The biggest drawback of Bennecke’s sequel lies in perhaps what makes it standard action fare, geared toward an older American demographic. While the environmental angle creates a refreshing plotline, the antagonist being an Islamic man implementing eco- and bioterrorism in the name of jihad feels—aside from promoting a disturbing stereotype—a bit old hat at this point. That said, readers who love propulsive stories that could someday land on Liam Neeson’s IMDB page will likely enjoy this thriller.
An entertaining, action-packed tale involving viruses and terrorism.Pub Date: April 22, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-944715-98-4
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2022
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 pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.
Hung out to dry by the elders who betrayed them, a squad of pregnant teens fights back with old magic.
Hendrix has a flair for applying inventive hooks to horror, and this book has a good one, chock-full with shades of V.C. Andrews, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Foxfire, to name a few. Our narrator, Neva Craven, is 15 and pregnant, a fate worse than death in the American South circa 1970. She’s taken by force to Wellwood House in Florida, a secretive home for unwed mothers where she’s given the name Fern. She’ll have the baby secretly and give it up for adoption, whether she likes it or not. Under the thumb of the house’s cruel mistress, Miss Wellwood, and complicit Dr. Vincent, Neva forges cautious alliance with her fellow captives—a new friend, Zinnia; budding revolutionary Rose; and young Holly, raped and impregnated by the very family minister slated to adopt her child. All seems lost until the arrival of a mysterious bookmobile and its librarian, Miss Parcae, who gives the girls an actual book of spells titled How To Be a Groovy Witch. There’s glee in seeing the powerless granted some well-deserved payback, but Hendrix never forgets his sweet spot, lacing the story with body horror and unspeakable cruelties that threaten to overwhelm every little victory. In truth, it’s not the paranormal elements that make this blast from the past so terrifying—although one character evolves into a suitably scary antagonist near the end—but the unspeakable, everyday atrocities leveled at children like these. As the girls lose their babies one by one, they soon devote themselves to secreting away Holly and her child. They get some help late in the game but for the most part they’re on their own, trapped between forces of darkness and society’s merciless judgement.
A pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780593548981
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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