bookshelf

IMMORTAL

Name: IMMORTAL
Author: Dean Crawford
ISBN: 978-1-4516-5948-1

by Dean Crawford ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 8, 2013

A formulaic and generally predictable entry in the wide world of thrillers.

bookshelf

A pair of rough-and-tumble private investigators try to track down the secret of a pharmaceutical company’s puzzling breakthrough.

Rugged ex-Marine Ethan Warner and his partner, Nicola Lopez, return in this Western-set sequel to Crawford’s 2011 supernatural debut, Convenant. Like its predecessor, the latest entry in the series is a mix of CSI-style forensic scrutiny dappled with Michael Crichton-like scientific tomfoolery. The new book finds Warner and Lopez reluctantly working as bail bondsmen when they’re tasked by Defense Intelligence Agency chief Doug Jarvis to look into a mysterious body that has turned up at the morgue in Santa Fe, N.M. County coroner Lillian Cruz has a fellow named Hiram Conley on her slab with a musket ball in his thigh and a serious case of old age. Their investigation leads to a pharmaceutical mogul named Jeb Oppenheimer, who also has an activist daughter, Saffron, who is acting out as an anti-vivisection activist. Oppenheimer, who is chasing down a complicated scientific solution to immortality, is also affiliated with a shadowy cabal of power brokers who are interested in applying Oppenheimer’s discovery to the problem of overpopulation. Meanwhile, Warner and Lopez must ferret out the secret behind a band of eight Union soldiers who seem to have endured since a strange battle in 1862. The action is frenetic, in the vein of Matthew Reilly’s Scarecrow series, but the science, while heavily researched and plausible, feels gimmicky. Dire pronunciations like this one—“It is not the science that is at fault, it is the fact that there are simply too many human beings populating our planet acting as petrie dishes for and carriers of exotic infectious diseases. If we do not act now, their carrying of the next great pandemic could spill over into our own countries and threaten humanity’s very existence”—have a bit of a Bond-villain tang to them.

A formulaic and generally predictable entry in the wide world of thrillers.

Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-4516-5948-1

Page Count: 416

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012

Categories:

SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE

bookshelf

NO BAD DEED

by Heather Chavez ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020

Chavez delivers a fraught if flawed page-turner that attempts too many twists.

bookshelf

A good Samaritan incurs a psychopath’s wrath in this debut thriller.

Veterinarian Cassie Larkin is heading home after a 12-hour shift when someone darts in front of her car, causing her to dump her energy drink. As she pulls over to mop up the mess, her headlights illuminate a couple having a physical altercation. Cassie calls 911, but before help arrives, the man tosses the woman down an embankment. Ignoring the dispatcher’s instructions, Cassie exits the vehicle and intervenes, preventing the now-unconscious woman’s murder. With sirens wailing in the distance, the man warns Cassie: “Let her die, and I’ll let you live.” He then scrambles back to the road and flees in Cassie’s van. Using mug shots, Cassie identifies the thief and would-be killer as Carver Sweet, who is wanted for poisoning his wife. The Santa Rosa police assure Cassie of her safety, but the next evening, her husband, Sam, vanishes while trick-or-treating with their 6-year-old daughter, Audrey. Hours later, he sends texts apologizing and confessing to an affair, but although it’s true that Sam and Cassie have been fighting, she suspects foul play—particularly given the previous night’s events. Cassie files a report with the cops, but they dismiss her concerns, leaving Cassie to investigate on her own. After a convoluted start, Chavez embarks on a paranoia-fueled thrill ride, escalating the stakes while exploiting readers’ darkest domestic fears. The far-fetched plot lacks cohesion and relies too heavily on coincidence to be fully satisfying, but the reader will be invested in learning the Larkin family’s fate through to the too-pat conclusion.

Chavez delivers a fraught if flawed page-turner that attempts too many twists.

Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-06-293617-2

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019

Categories:

bookshelf

THE STAND

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 3, 1978

bookshelf

Striking a far less hysterical tone than in The Shining, King has written his most sweeping horror novel in The Stand, though it may lack the spinal jingles of Salem's Lot. In part this is because The Stand, with its flow of hundreds of brand-name products, is a kind of inventory of American culture. "Superflu" has hit the U.S. and the world, rapidly wiping out the whole of civilization—excepting the one-half of one percent who are immune. Superflu is a virus with a shifting antigen base; that is, it can kill every type of antibody the human organism can muster against it. Immunity seems to be a gift from God—or the Devil. The Devil himself has become embodied in a clairvoyant called Randall Flagg, a phantom-y fellow who walks highways and is known variously as "the dark man" or "the Walking Dude" and who has set up a new empire in Las Vegas where he rules by fear, his hair giving off sparks while he floats in the lotus position. He is very angry because the immune folks in the Free Zone up at Boulder have sent a small force against him; they get their message from Him (God) through a dying black crone named Abigail, who is also clairvoyant. There are only four in this Boulder crew, led by Stu Redman from East Texas, who is in love with pregnant Fran back in the Free Zone. Good and Evil come to an atomic clash at the climax, the Book of Revelations working itself out rather too explicitly. But more importantly, there are memorable scenes of the superflu spreading hideously, Fifth Avenue choked with dead cars, Flagg's minions putting up fresh lightbulbs all over Vegas. . . . Some King fans will be put off by the pretensions here; most will embrace them along with the earthier chilis.