THE INHERENT THREAT

An ace British crime-solver-turned-historian is drawn into deadly international intrigue with assassins, powerful bankers, members of Parliament, rogue military, and the CIA.

Tucker’s follow-up to An Essential Deception (2013) brings to the fore the earlier thriller’s considerably paranormal backstory elements. England is still recovering from tumult following the abduction of the prime minister, a case solved by supersleuth-historian Dr. Hanson Shaw, formerly of Scotland Yard. “Super” sleuth turns out to be quite literal. Three decades earlier, the child Hanson was accidentally exposed to an experiment using unknown, ancient technology. It took place after famed “international financier and luminary” Sheldon Wilde had rediscovered, in southern Greek mountain caves, an astonishing, still-functioning construction from prehistoric times. Resembling a pipe organ blended with a gothic cathedral, the cryptic relic, or “artefact,” collects wind energy to produce harmonics and frequencies so uncanny, humans who listen may evolve augmented intellect, acuity, charisma, ambition, extreme longevity, or they can die horribly or turn into psychopaths. Among those ancients who heard this transformative “clamorous blast from hell” in varying degrees: Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great. Before walling up the location, Wilde and Hanson’s grandfather recorded the sound on magnetic tape for research back on home soil. Little 3-year-old Hanson, gadding about his family’s premises in Scotland, heard a full dose, which knocked the young lad unconscious. Adult Dr. Shaw still contends with crippling migraines and fainting spells, but he also benefits from visions, cosmic insights, and enhanced fighting skills. Now, with high-profile assassinations of prominent British military officers crossing his mind’s eye, Dr. Shaw must investigate. A subplot involves the ruthless rise of a Chinese banker named Napoleon; an economy-staggering, $30 trillion Asian-debt bubble; high treason among members of Parliament; an unethical London doctor getting rich by mishandling a medical miracle; and, in America, a slimy CIA director trying to keep his job by tempting the U.S. president with schemes to discover how the eminent financier and luminary Sheldon Wilde manages to stay active and vibrant—at age 115.

Crossing multiple time zones, the mystic adventure may put one in mind as much of Jeffrey Archer as Dan Brown, with its rarefied atmosphere of Europe’s ultra-posh and high-stakes financial/political games playing out in labyrinthine form among the world’s latter-day Olympus of wealthy and/or famous elites. Plot complications and time-trips revert back to the Renaissance and well before that­—and yes, a unique art-appreciation lesson on a Raphael fresco weaves into the novel marvelously. Tucker ably juggles elaborate exposition on multiple stages and keeping all the plates spinning; prior reader association with An Essential Deception isn’t absolutely essential to enjoy the pages turning and the plot cogwheels meshing like an Archimedes device. Dialogue, characterizations, and overall epoch-crossing scope are rendered with intelligence, and the delving into classical antiquities and an “artefact” potentially shaping the destiny of humankind truly captivates the imagination rather than just being the umpteenth pulpy genre device about some kid suffering a lab mishap and turning into a reluctant superhero. Have no fear, this material exists on a higher level. The story wraps up most satisfyingly but clearly has room to add further episodes to ascend to a potential series pantheon.

Familiar superhero tropes, remarkably, do not impair a smart jet-set thriller of geopolitics, high-finance crimes, and murder.