A derivative but well-crafted and engaging bioweapon tale.
A banker investigates his father’s suspicious death and stumbles on a terrorist conspiracy in this debut novel.
David Blum, a 38-year-old senior adviser at Regency Bank, receives devastating news: His father, Solomon, a professor of political science, has just died of a heart attack. David rushes to his hometown, Champaign, Illinois, and receives an alarming note from a stranger, Hans Meier, who claims to have information about the true nature of Solomon’s death. Hans arranges a meeting with David but never shows up. In fact, Hans—a graduate student and an admirer of Solomon—seems to have disappeared. In addition, the student’s home has been searched. David, a former FBI agent, decides to conduct an investigation of his own and finds a cryptic note in Hans’ handwriting that appears to anticipate the intentional unleashing of some kind of epidemic. Generating considerable suspense and enough plausibility for a novelistic version of a big-budget movie, the story details David’s race to thwart a biomedical act of terrorism by an insane agricultural scientist, Otto Feldmann. David tracks down a woman, Kay Westfield, who 20 years earlier inadvertently witnessed Feldmann supervise a bizarre experiment that involved an exploding plane, poison gas, and rapidly dying animals. Jacobs’ plot hurtles along at an agreeably swift pace, never lagging, always delivering a steady stream of easily digestible entertainment. The tale is a very familiar one, even formulaic, and Feldmann, a “consummate soulless scientist—all brain and no heart,” is an unreconstructed type, a kind of barely personified cliché. But the book’s strengths are neither depth nor originality, but rather taut, lucidly described drama and a magnetic leading man. For readers with the proper expectations, this novel provides an enjoyable way to spend a leisurely afternoon.
A derivative but well-crafted and engaging bioweapon tale.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 357
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
A well-turned, if predictable, installment in the popular series.
With the United States the “closest [it’s] been to war” in a lifetime, intelligence operative Jack Ryan Jr. faces stiff odds in trying to avert disaster with China.
Trouble with China begins brewing (yet again in the Clancy books) with the rendition of a Chinese scientist and the killing of his American brother, a specialist in machine learning. With a sniper attack on the German outpost of The Campus, Ryan’s “off-the-books” agency, and the downing of an American plane over the South China Sea, U.S. efforts to recover a Chinese undersea glider capable of detecting a $3 billion American stealth submarine are in jeopardy. Things look especially grim with the capture of crash survivor John Clark, Ryan’s boss and a close compadre of his father, President Jack Ryan Sr. With Ryan Sr. still shaken by the abduction of his wife a year ago and Ryan Jr. doubtful of his abilities as a team leader, it's up to intelligence director Mary Pat Foley to calm the waters with her expertise and strong will. One possible outcome is a Chinese attack on Taiwan. In Bentley’s third outing in the series, it takes a while to get past cookie cutter stuff: Many pages go by before the reader knows what all the tense language, chase scenes, and international travel are about. But the book's cool, checkerboard efficiency eventually takes hold. And the streaks of vulnerability that run through the Ryans impart a human dimension that most such thrillers lack. Bentley also takes pains to distinguish the novel from fake fiction: “Unlike in the movies, getting struck by a rifle round moving at several thousand feet per second was not insignificant.”
A well-turned, if predictable, installment in the popular series.Pub Date: May 23, 2023
ISBN: 9780593422786
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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