by Roxanne E. Burkey Charles V. Breakfield ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 8, 2017
Another stellar installment. Breakfield and Burkey show no signs of slowing down in an ever improving series.
The fourth entry in Breakfield and Burkey’s (The Enigma Ignite, 2014, etc.) techno-thriller series pits the R-Group against a seemingly untraceable computer virus and what could be a full-scale digital assault.
A series of cyberattacks targets an Irish bank, a Texas winery and a hydroelectric dam in Brazil, among other places. They also attract the R-Group, an organization specializing in information gathering and analysis. The rogue code leaves messages behind, calling itself the Ghost Code, before apparently wiping clear any evidence of its existence. Jacob, his love, Petra, and the rest of the team believe these attacks are indicative of “training exercises” that precede a much larger strike. The R-Group’s involvement becomes personal when Juan’s plane is hacked; there’s a possibility that he’s dead after communication is lost. Juan’s brother Carlos and Juan’s newly pregnant lover, Julie, go undercover to stop Zara, a beautiful cyberassassin, who may play a part in the Ghost Code and who, interestingly enough, could pass for a Petra doppelgänger. The authors’ latest novel—their fastest-paced yet—dives headfirst into the plot and maintains an engaging mystery based on the R-Group’s investigation. The person responsible for the Ghost Code, they discover, is Mephisto, corresponding with hacker Callisto, though the true identities behind the handles aren’t initially clear. There’s a veritable hodgepodge of characters, most of whom are returning, but the authors include context for new readers without weighing the story down with a laborious retread. As in prior novels, characters are colorful and indelible. Zara is particularly engrossing. She was a dominatrix at a young age, which instilled in her an obsessive desire for control. There’s even a sex scene with Zara in which she humiliates her bodyguard, Dante; while it’s evident what’s happening, the scene manages to be as subdued as the rest of the novel, with few vulgar words. The main plot ends with over 50 pages remaining, so while the coda might have been better were it truncated, it once again leaves room for another sequel.
Another stellar installment. Breakfield and Burkey show no signs of slowing down in an ever improving series.Pub Date: March 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-946858-09-2
Page Count: 350
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
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
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018
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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