An intriguing but uneven tale about the dangers of genetic engineering.
A Saudi princess and a novice reporter work to bring down a mad scientist in this techno-thriller.
Dr. Jordan Roberts is a pioneer in the field of genetic editing. She has developed the ability to cure a wide variety of diseases, though the details of her treatment remain a well-kept secret. Jordan travels to Saudi Arabia to pitch her services to up-and-coming governor Prince Faruq. While there, she also meets the prince’s sister, Princess Saleh, who dresses like a man and serves as her brother’s primary bodyguard. Jordan and Saleh quickly become more than simple business associates, but it isn’t long before the princess becomes suspicious of the doctor’s work, which requires the geneticist to travel to remote regions of Afghanistan. When Saleh discovers Jordan’s real project—she is building clone soldiers and selling them to the highest bidder on the international black market—the geneticist assassinates Faruq, making it look like a suicide. Saleh vows to take vengeance, a quest that leads her to Jordan’s native San Francisco. Meanwhile, Price Laurel, a struggling actor from St. Louis, is living out of his van on the streets of San Francisco. In the aftermath of his brother’s death in the Afghanistan War, Price decides to become a freelance reporter. His first big story: a profile of Jordan. Jordan is hoping for good PR surrounding her new operations—she’s attempting to secure funding from the American government—so she agrees to allow Price into her orbit, thinking she can control him. Saleh learns about it and makes her own offer to Price. The two set about to expose Jordan and her unethical cloning operation, but has the doctor become too powerful for anyone to vanquish her?
The ambitious, nearly 500-page work has many captivating plotlines and characters, particularly the mercurial Saleh. Micko also explores some complex, thought-provoking ideas in the narrative, like gender fluidity and cloning, that myriad readers will be interested in. But while the author’s prose has a nice staccato rhythm, it sometimes reads more like a film treatment than a novel. Furthermore, the style is often too clunky to achieve the tone Micko desires. Price is supposed to read as naïve, but he frequently comes across as an idiot: “One thing runs through his mind: clones. If Jordan is creating clones, then that is illegal. Especially if she’s making them for mass production. There’s got to be a law against that, somewhere. Also, it’s unethical. If Jordan successfully cloned a human being and then terminated said human being, then that constitutes murder. However, is the clone considered a human being?” Some of the other characters don’t fare much better. Few are fully convincing in the roles they occupy. Along the way, several of them speak and act like high school students pretending to be Bond villains. Although the plot boldly tackles some rich concepts and issues and delivers bits of humor, it can sometimes become convoluted and lose momentum.
An intriguing but uneven tale about the dangers of genetic engineering.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-54-946124-6
Page Count: 469
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2021
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
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.
A violent attack hijacks a woman’s memory in this novel of domestic suspense.
McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from men who have betrayed them. That formula perfectly fits Dr. Charlotte McKenna, a 37-year-old dermatologist who isn’t looking for love until the most handsome man she’s ever seen begins to woo her. There are warning signs about Clark Douglas and Charlotte overlooks them to her detriment—but is he a killer? The novel has dual timelines split between events leading up to the day Charlotte barely survives a head wound meant to kill her and the months afterward, when she struggles to reclaim her memory and her mobility. In real life, McFadden is a physician trained to treat brain injuries. Her expertise gives Charlotte’s rehabilitation authenticity, and her writing talent makes it interesting and engaging. As good as that timeline is, readers will yearn to get back to the alternate timeline about who wants Charlotte dead. It’s only a matter of time before Charlotte starts to remember who tried to kill her, and the clock is ticking toward their next attempt. McFadden dishes up plenty of suspects: Charlotte’s secretive husband, Clark; a former patient turned stalker who confronts Charlotte on her honeymoon; and the angry husband of a patient who blames Charlotte for his wife leaving him. Though the story is delicious and dark, McFadden brightens things up with a possible love interest for Charlotte and a surprise ending sure to please the author’s many fans.
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249617
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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