A vast, tightly constructed thriller that ticks down to a brilliant finale.
A disparate group of crime solvers attempt to untangle a complex terrorist plot in Zahn’s SF thriller.
A tactical nuclear weapon has been stolen from a research facility in India. The news rattles the American president’s cabinet, including FBI director Frank McPherson, who oversees the effort to prevent that weapon from being detonated in the United States. Meanwhile, a top-secret set of invisibility prototypes, known as the Cloaks, have gone missing from a lab in the Bay Area, and the thief left behind three dead scientists. While FBI special agent Madison Talbot and San Jose detective Natal Delgado attempt to figure out who took the precious technology—and why—Angie Chandler, the wife of one of the dead scientists, finds herself the target of a hit squad in stocking caps. She narrowly escapes death with the help of private investigator Adam Ross. Meanwhile, on a Pakistani container ship in the South China Sea, two secret agents, known by the code names Ten and Eleven, embark on a covert mission at the behest of unknown forces. How do these events connect? What unlucky soul does a shadowy force want to kill so badly that they’re willing to kill tens of thousands of innocents along with them? Zahn’s taut prose adeptly builds suspense in this cloak-and-dagger tale. Here Angie, consumed by paranoia, finds an envelope from her father: “She scooped it up, closed the mailbox, and continued on legs shaking as much as her hands while she waited for the shouts of triumph or, worse, the sound of the shot that would send her sprawling to the ground in a pool of her own blood. But there was nothing but the same thousand strange noises.” Zahn’s skill in constructing these characters and their detailed, weaving storylines makes for an immersive and thoroughly satisfying mystery on a grand scale.
A vast, tightly constructed thriller that ticks down to a brilliant finale.Pub Date: May 14, 2024
ISBN: 978-1949890914
Page Count: 546
Publisher: Aethon Books, LLC
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Plenty of excitement for Clancy fans.
Chinese president Li Jian Jun plans a sneak attack on Taiwan, and it’s up to the Jack Ryan administration to stop him without going to war.
President Li announces a naval exercise, but his real plan is Operation Sea Serpent, the lightning reunification of Taiwan. His minister of defense, Admiral Qin Hâiyû, thinks the idea is crazy because a great number of people would die, but he can’t say so. Li is not a man to be challenged, and he’s already had one of his ministers executed. But Qin wants to stop the war before it begins. Perhaps he can get word to the Americans so they can cut off the mad scheme, and he’s troubled by whether his actions will make him a traitor or a patriot. A Western asset nicknamed the Spider helps facilitate his dangerous disappearance as he attempts to leave China, and authorities in Beijing don’t know if he’s been kidnapped or has defected. Meanwhile, the Ryan administration wants to get him safely extracted from mainland China. President Ryan orders that an American naval vessel will transit through the Strait of Taiwan, which the People’s Republic has blockaded. Will there be a bloody showdown that triggers a major war? So much can go wrong, and there are series regulars like John Clark and Ding Chavez at the tip of the spear. And there’s also Katie Ryan, a lieutenant commander with the Office of Naval Intelligence who’s deployed to Taiwan because she’s “one hell of an intelligence analyst” who “thinks outside the box.” She’s a “rising star” who refuses to trade on her relationship with her father, President Ryan. There’s not much violence, although there’s enough to call it a military thriller. One brave American is fading fast from a round to his chest, but he has time to smile about that “hot” Katie Ryan. (Yes, yes, we all like the Ryans.) The novel’s big question is not which nation wins, but whether they fight. Bravery and clear thinking will have to come from both sides. By the way, Jack Junior isn’t in this one—it’s Katie’s time to shine.
Plenty of excitement for Clancy fans.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593717974
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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