In this crime tale, the author shows an imaginative knack for combining old-fashioned thrills with high-tech capers.
A New York City undercover detective investigates a gang that specializes in breaking into skyscrapers.
Jake Rivett, the NYPD hero of Hatch’s (Flash Crash, 2016) previous novel, returns here for a second go-round. This time, Ducati-loving Jake, a headbanger musician in his spare time, goes deep undercover to infiltrate a group that is specially targeting penthouse apartments in skyscrapers belonging to a Donald Trumpish real estate mogul, Arthur Metropolis. Jake’s point of entry is the crew led by Rory Visco that gets its kicks by illegally climbing Manhattan landmarks and exploring off-limits locations beneath the city’s streets. Written in a particularly visceral fashion, readers get to experience firsthand the pure adrenaline rush of this new breed of urban explorer and location hacker. From penetrating a band of bank robbers, Jake learned about the Leviathan, a Mr. Big who is behind much of the crime committed in New York. It doesn’t take long for a reader to figure out that these two plots will eventually intersect. At the same time, Jake develops a romantic relationship with Mona Rosas, a community activist who is also a member of the extreme thrills crew. But will his identity as an NYPD detective be revealed and thus expose Mona to additional danger? As in his previous novel, the author writes with flair about cutting-edge technology and turns out to be a knowledgeable guide when it comes to the shadow Manhattan that few are privileged to know about. He takes his characters from the heights of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty to the abandoned subway station beneath the Waldorf Astoria hotel and the city’s oldest sewer system, known as the hydra. Characterizations are on the thin side here, and the writing remains uneven. But the author makes up for any flaws with the most exhilarating action set pieces this side of either version of the movie Point Break, to which the plot makes more than a few passing nods.
In this crime tale, the author shows an imaginative knack for combining old-fashioned thrills with high-tech capers.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Lookout Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2016
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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