This one’s fast-moving fun.
A plague threatens to burst from the Congolese jungle and infect the world in the latest bloodcurdling adventure in the Sigma Force series.
“Stay away. Dear God, don’t come out here”: That's the warning ignored by Sigma Force’s Tucker Wayne and his faithful soldier dog, Kane. Near Kisangani, “the literal heart of Africa,” a fearful contagion runs amok. Scientists and locals suffer attacks from crazed ants, bats, and myriad other jungle fauna. Some of the populace becomes nearly catatonic—what’s going on? The answer appears to be viruses, those half-living creatures said to outnumber all the stars in the universe. An infected moth lands on skin with bloodcurdling effect. Baboons go crazy and tear people apart. Ants develop spikes, as though their mandibles aren’t enough for ripping into flesh. The normally cranky hippos are even crankier. And “the deeper we go, the worse it will get.” The evil mining CEO Nolan De Coster loves all of this—he wants a massive pandemic in which he can become the savior, but he’s not all the good guys have to worry about. Even the flora fight them. They encounter intelligent fungi and angry trees as they get closer and closer to Mfupa Ufalme, the accursed Kingdom of Bones. Thriller readers love ticking clocks, and this yarn has several, like the timer on the mother of all bombs that is going to explode any minute now. The story is a well-mixed blend of action, science, and occasionally over-the-top imagination. That bats are “furry sacks of viruses” is an easy sell—judgmental trees, not so much. Readers will like the characters, especially the brave Kane and Benjamin Frey, the biologist with an eidetic memory and mild Asperger’s. This excursion into the depths of Africa is more enjoyable than Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, although it gets a little gross in spots.
This one’s fast-moving fun.Pub Date: April 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-289298-0
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
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
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
© 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.
