THE NO SURVIVORS RULE

A grizzled fighter-turned-investigator finds himself confronting a deadly conspiracy in this debut dystopian thriller.

Frankie Devlin was a journeyman on the Hinterlands Championship Fighting tour. He and many ex-fighters wound up in security jobs—in his case, providing muscle at an energy plant. It’s a tolerable existence for Frankie. But then things get worse. AVP, a lethal syndrome of side effects caused by an antiviral agent that a quarter-century ago saved millions during a pandemic, starts striking survivors. Among those is Harley Rickenbacker, a former fighter and Frankie’s co-worker (“Harley had been an HCF fan favorite. Back then, his movie-star looks had earned him the nickname Hollywood Harley Rickenbacker”). Before Harley is carted away to quarantine, he asks Frankie to find his daughter, Hope. Then Barry Bliss, the longtime HCF head, gets abducted and Frankie is hired to investigate. Soon, Frankie’s refinery is destroyed by an unknown assault force, during which his friend Leo Rivas and other workers are killed. Frankie pursues the big mercenary who killed Leo into the Zone, a lawless region of the Hinterlands, in hopes of vengeance or at least answers to his many questions. Shockingly, the mercenary soon repels an unsuccessful attack by his own collaborators. Then Frankie meets a bush chemist who may have some vital information. But Frankie knows precious little about the nefarious goings-on in the Hinterlands. The strength of Lake’s gripping novel is its believability. Corporations seeking maximum profits and power by holding up a population desperate for a cure to a deadly disease certainly could occur. And a lone-wolf investigator like Frankie could manage to put all the pieces together to determine what had happened, even though he has no way to impart that information to a public unwilling to question those in charge. Many of the people in the Hinterlands are mindless sheep, taking what their leaders offer them at face value, even while living on a battlefield. At least Frankie recognizes his role as a minor cog in a machine. The author throws a lot of information at readers, but the familiarity of recent and current events makes it easier to process. In this engaging series opener, Lake has skillfully created a complex world ripe for future exploration.

One man tries to solve a complicated scenario in this riveting mystery.