An audacious, apocalyptic tale that will electrify SF, horror, and thriller fans alike.
Blending elements from three genres, this sequel pits a physician and amateur sleuth against a viral-like illness that, if left unchecked, could annihilate the human race within a matter of days.
As the novel begins, Hope Allerd—the chief of the Infectious Diseases Division in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University Medical School in Birmingham, Alabama—finds herself suspended from her position. She faces potential prison time for malfeasance involving a foundation she began to provide care for indigent people in the Caribbean. But as she attempts to extract herself from her legal entanglements, she becomes aware of a bizarre outbreak spreading across the globe that seems to have its epicenter in Birmingham. Most victims have fevers, respiratory ailments, and a penchant for chewing other people’s faces off before they die. But others seem to have supernaturally enhanced cognition, strength, and agility—and have bodies that slowly transform into nightmarish monstrosities. As Allerd races to uncover the truth and a cure for the horror-inducing plague with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, journalist Clive Andrew, and courageous Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigator Connie Wu, she realizes that humankind’s time as the dominant race on the planet may have already come to an end. The seamless fusion of SF, horror, and medical thriller storylines makes this a virtually un-put-down-able read. At one point, Allerd encounters one of the plague’s grotesque survivors: “The form, an inky homunculus shape with arched back, head turned full round toward her, coal-black eyes, and quiet as a whisper, perched on the ceiling. A living breathing fun-house gargoyle.” Thornton obviously knows what powers a superb thriller—relentless pacing, nonstop action, an impressive amount of bombshell plot twists, and an emotionally connective main character that readers can identify with and root for.
An audacious, apocalyptic tale that will electrify SF, horror, and thriller fans alike.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2021
ISBN: 979-8491897872
Page Count: 327
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An accomplished but emotionally undercooked courtroom drama by the author who made that genre popular.
Having been falsely convicted of murder himself years ago, prosecutor Rusty Sabich defies common wisdom in defending his romantic partner’s adopted son against the same accusation.
Now 76, Rusty has retired to the (fictitious) Skageon Region in the upper Midwest, far removed from Kindle County, Turow’s Chicago stand-in, where he was a star attorney and judge. Aaron Housley, a Black man raised in a bleached rural environment, has had his troubles, including serving four months for holding drugs purchased by Mae Potter, his erratic, on-and-off girlfriend. Now, after suddenly disappearing to parts unknown with her, he returns alone. When days go by without Mae’s reappearance, it is widely assumed that Aaron harmed her. Why else would he be in possession of her phone? Following the discovery of Mae’s strangled body and incriminating evidence that points to Aaron, Rusty steps in. Opposed in court by the uncontrollable, gloriously named prosecutor Hiram Jackdorp, he fears he’s in a lose-lose situation. If he fails to get Aaron off, which is highly possible, the boy’s mother, Bea, will never forgive him. If Rusty wins the case, the quietly detached Bea—who, like half the town, has secrets—will have trouble living with the unsparing methods Rusty uses to free Aaron. In attempting to match, or at least approach, the brilliance of his groundbreaking masterpiece Presumed Innocent (1987), Turow has his own odds to overcome. No minor achievement like a previous follow-up, Innocent (2010), the new novel is a powerful display of straightforward narrative, stuffed with compelling descriptions of people, places, and the legal process. No one stages courtroom scenes better than this celebrated Chicago attorney. But the book, whose overly long scenes add up to more than 500 pages, mostly lacks the gripping intensity and high moral drama to keep those pages turning. It’s an absorbing and entertaining read, but Turow’s fans have come to expect more than that.
An accomplished but emotionally undercooked courtroom drama by the author who made that genre popular.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781538706367
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2024
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
© 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.
