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
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.
A successful Vermont podcaster who’s elicited confessions from dozens of criminals finds herself on the other side of the table, in the hottest of hot seats, over her own troubled past.
Poe Webb was only 13 when she saw her mother, Margaret McMillian, get stabbed to death by the man she’d picked up for a quickie. Poe had vowed revenge, but how could a kid find and avenge herself on a stranger who’d vanished as quickly as he appeared? In the long years since then, Poe’s made a name for herself as a top true-crime podcaster who routinely invites her guests to tell her audience exactly what they did. Now, she’s being pressed, and pressed hard, by Ian Hindley, whose fake name echoes those of England’s Moors Murderers, to join him in a livestream her fans will find riveting because, as Hindley tells her, he’s actually Leopold Hutchins, the pickup who stabbed her mother 14 times when she failed to use her safe word. Skeptical? Hindley knows endless details about the killing that were never released by the police. If Poe won’t do the broadcast, Hindley threatens to harm everyone she loves: her father; her producer and lover, Kip Nguyen; and her black Lab, Bailey. And there’s one more complication that makes the pressure on Poe even more unbearable. Seven years ago, against all odds, she succeeded in tracking Leopold Hutchins from Burlington to New York and killing him herself. In fact, it’s that murder that Hindley most wants her to talk about. Which bully is more fearsome, the man who’s threatening her or the man she killed?
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781464226229
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
