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THE LAST PLAGUE

An intriguing medical tale hampered by uneven prose.

An SF thriller focuses on a world where clones thrive and a new vaccine promises possible immortality.

Dr. Avicenna “Avit” Arceneaux is a young pathologist working on the Panacea vaccine, which will be distributed worldwide. As the rollout is about to start, Arceneaux and his assistant, Mathieu Boden, perform an autopsy on a corpse with a strange condition—the person died by rotting from the inside out. Surgeon General Story Patout, who is in charge of the vaccine project, begins an experiment on Arceneaux and hospital administrator Sister Lazare, both clones, to see if he can mutate them into a higher form. Arceneaux participates against his will, and as the experiment starts to affect him, pandemonium breaks loose. The Panacea vaccine turns out to contain a plague that kills millions around the globe. This was Patout’s plan all along. Arceneaux was “harvested” as a child, meaning his organs were taken to save his brother, Roby, leaving the pathologist scarred and seeing the world through prosthetic eyes. The experiment heals Arceneaux, giving him human eyes and long hair, which makes him look feminine. He uses this disguise to stay in the hospital, posing as the sister of a doctor named Elise Casaubon, and avoid Patout, who wants to harvest him again for antibodies. This sets up a battle pitting Arceneaux, Lazare, and Elise against Patout, Roby, and Elise’s sleazy husband, Richard, to end the surgeon general’s programs for the good of humankind. The novel has the bones of a captivating SF adventure, offering rich details and a remarkable protagonist. But the story feels convoluted, and there are a lot of helpful coincidences, such as Arceneaux’s looking feminine after the experiment takes hold. There is no thorough explanation for that, though it makes much of the following action possible. Unfortunately, the villains are cartoonish. Patout at one point explains that he was actually trying to help humanity by killing a large percentage of the population, reducing the strain on global resources. But there is no sense of what would drive him to such a monstrous deed. In addition, awkward prose hinders the narrative, as when Crouch writes of Arceneaux: “Anxiety broke over him like a red flag surf in the Gulf.” And instead of telling readers Roby has a trademark sneer, the author writes: “He sneered and it was a trademark.”

An intriguing medical tale hampered by uneven prose.

Pub Date: July 28, 2020

ISBN: 979-8-63-927580-7

Page Count: 312

Publisher: Self

Review Posted Online: April 18, 2021

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DARK MATTER

Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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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IDENTITY UNKNOWN

Expert, but unsurprising.

The death of an old friend who was more than a friend sends Dr. Kay Scarpetta down her latest rabbit hole.

If every body tells a story, the corpse of 7-year-old Luna Briley sings the blues. On top of the many signs of ongoing physical abuse, there’s the fatal gunshot wound to her head. Ryder and Piper Briley, the wealthy and powerful parents who didn’t call the police until after their daughter died, insist that Luna’s death was an accident, or maybe a suicide. Scarpetta doesn’t think so, and her refusal to release the body to the Brileys’ hand-picked mortician moves them to legal action against her as Virginia’s chief medical examiner. You’d think it would be a relief to put this case aside for another when Scarpetta’s niece, Secret Service agent Lucy Farinelli, calls her and ferries her by helicopter to an abandoned Oz theme park owned by Ryder Briley, but this one’s even more heartbreaking. Scarpetta is there to examine the body of astrophysicist Sal Giordano, her close friend and former lover, who was evidently kidnapped, held in captivity for several hours, and tossed out of an unidentified aircraft. The leading suspects are the Brileys; Carrie Grethen, Lucy’s sociopathic ex-lover, with whom Scarpetta has repeatedly tangled in the past; and the UFO that dumped Giordano’s body without leaving the usual traces for air-traffic technologies to pick up. The multiple rounds of physical examinations Scarpetta conducts on both victims are every bit as meticulous and gripping as fans would expect; the killer’s identity is neither surprising nor interesting, but Cornwell juggles her trademark forensics, and the paranormal hints she’s become increasingly invested in, more dexterously than usual.

Expert, but unsurprising.

Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024

ISBN: 9781538770382

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024

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