Heart-stopping action and horror that will give night terrors to the most jaded thrill-seeker.
After spending three books with a 60-foot prehistoric shark (Meg, 1997, etc.), Alten takes on Nessie in a supercharged monster thriller.
All of this author’s gigantidramas carry a vast ballast of scientific research and stabilizing facts that lend sweet belief to fairy tales full of big bad beasts. Most people may think that the fabled Loch Ness monster doesn’t exist, but marine biologist Zack Wallace knows better. Born and raised by Loch Ness until his mother divorced his philandering father and moved to the States, Zack still carries the scars on his back and buttocks from the bite Nessie gave him when he was nine. Oh—and he drowned as well; in fact, he drowns under horrible circumstances three times here but is pumped or electro-paddled back to life. We first meet Zack in a submersible under the Sargasso Sea. Using new sonar equipment, he sends out recorded bait sounds to entice a monstrous 60-foot squid up to his film cameras. The squid comes, tears the submersible to pieces and Zack drowns for the second time. As he recovers, his half-brother, Scottish lawyer Max Rael, appears to tell him he’s needed back at Loch Ness. Their father is on trial for murdering big-time bad guy Johnny Cialino. Angus claims that he merely struck Johnny C., who then fell into the frigid Loch and was swallowed by Nessie. Nobody believes him. To save his detested father, Zack must prove that Nessie exists. Soon monster-hunting teams from all over fill the Loch with pinging sonar signals, trying to sight the beast deep in the great trench in which the lake rests. Dirty deeds arise, as well as a surviving team of Black Knights Templar and the sexy captain of a tourist boat.
Heart-stopping action and horror that will give night terrors to the most jaded thrill-seeker.Pub Date: May 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-9761659-0-2
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Tsunami Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
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
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
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