A circuitous but diverting thriller.
In Wander’s (The Silent Lion, 2009) latest novel, a terrorist group plans an attack using leaked secrets from a high-tech company, and only a retired Israeli army officer can stop them.
When tech wizard Philip Courtney is found dead in his apartment, all signs point to suicide. However, he’d just started an exciting new job in a new city, and a co-worker is certain that something doesn’t add up. He brings his suspicions to a friend, Manuel Korman, whose father, David, is a former Israeli army officer with extensive intelligence and security experience. David agrees to investigate the matter, and when he interviews the senior staff at Black Technologies, where Philip served for years as a vice president, he knows they’re hiding something. He calls on his friends in Israeli intelligence for help, and together they untangle the complex, sordid relationship between the stunning Black Technologies executive VP of finance Nicole Lawrence; the company’s founder and president, Edgar Black; and Edgar’s son and heir apparent, Leon. Later, they work to find out how classified information is being funneled out of the company and to what terrorist group, and try to stop an elaborate scheme to defraud the U.S. government of billions. If all this sounds complicated, it is. Once Wander clarifies the various distinct plotlines, he manages to deftly establish suspense; however, readers may have trouble getting to that point, as the first quarter of the book consists primarily of exposition about several different characters. The author’s experience as a chief financial officer allows him to delve into the story’s intricate financial dealings; however, the book’s use of jargon can be heavy-handed at times—a tendency that may appeal to finance experts but may overwhelm general readers. The numerous sex scenes, as well, can be off-putting or mildly silly, as in a scene in which Nicole feels Leon’s “rising tower of manliness begin to harden under her.” However, readers who can overlook these flaws—and keep all the characters straight—will be rewarded with a bustling suspense yarn.
A circuitous but diverting thriller.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-1491700532
Page Count: 266
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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