An all-around enjoyable novel for fans of medical, military or global-espionage thrillers.
A group of American soldiers tracks a maniacal terrorist in possession of a biochemical weapon.
Ensign George Anders is positioned at the front of a global crisis in this military thriller set during the first Gulf War. Fluent in multiple languages and versed in military intelligence, Anders is less experienced in the field of combat. He’ll need to employ his skills to track down and detain Fahkir Kaseem, a dangerous terrorist intent on methodically destroying the West with a genetic weapon. Aiding Anders is a team of battle-hardened soldiers, warriors ready to provide access to any secure site he needs. At the same time, across the Middle East and into Eastern Europe, the other half of the story unfolds. Russian scientist Annelia Salenski, feeling at fault for a laboratory accident, is charged with stealing the only existing plans for this devilish bio-weapon. Little does she realize that her colleagues, intent on fleeing a crumbling Russia, will later become her enemies in this global drama. The weapon in question is a compound called Satan’s Sister, which combines two vicious filoviruses that not only work in tandem, but cancel each other out once released, thereby avoiding detection. But this combination of smallpox and the Marburg virus is not a weapon in the conventional sense–it actually alters its victims’ personalities according to a pre-established formula, thereby calling into question how humans evolve and what is truly predetermined. This main premise–the debate about evolution and intelligent design–seems overambitious, and the story could be just as enjoyable as a conventional action-adventure. The Navy SEAL team that Anders joins is stocked with stereotypical characters, but Reed brings them to life through vivid physical descriptions and realistic dialogue, absorbed during his time in the military. The Cold War setting might feel dated to some readers, but the story neatly segues into a chilling present. Readers in the know will remember that the Soviet Union performed research on similar compounds for use as weapons, which makes this story all the more compelling.
An all-around enjoyable novel for fans of medical, military or global-espionage thrillers.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-14196-5462-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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