THE THREE

Lone survivors from different plane crashes spark apocalyptic fears.

South African screenwriter Lotz’s new thriller revolves around the fictitious events of "Black Thursday," Jan. 12, 2012, when four planes crash within hours of each other on different continents. As if that weren't frightening enough, the drama is intensified when the public learns about the cryptic last message of a woman who died on one of the planes and the odd coincidence that in three of the crashes, a single child survived. When the children are returned to their families, they seem different somehow, and they become the focus of rumors ranging from alien activity to paranormal messaging. In the U.S., the hysteria is brought to a head by a fundamentalist preacher who sees the children as the harbingers of the End Times referenced in the book of Revelation. While the media hounds the survivors' families, politicians exploit the public's apocalyptic fears to take domestic and foreign policy in a new direction. Lotz tells the story through a fabricated nonfiction book within the novel called Black Thursday: From Crash to Conspiracy: Inside the Phenomenon of The Three, written by the fictional Elspeth Martins, who says she's pieced together an amalgam of email messages, interviews, articles, online chat forums and memoirs. This eclectic style of storytelling provides just enough information to follow the developing events, while the reader grasps for the crucial information that will solve the mystery of the enigmatic children.

An engaging thriller with clues that will keep you guessing.