Semimedical thriller by Wilson, a practicing physician (Deep as the Marrow, p. 95, etc.) and sometime horror novelist (The Select, 1994, etc.), who joins Lyon, also a novelist of medical thrillers, to produce a mob/medical story without a hint of the occult. Jake Nacht, a hit man with 17 kills, works for the mob on a freelance basis. As he sees it, he's helping haul out the trash by killing mobsters. An orphan, Jake is the adopted son of Sarge, an ex-Marine sniper with some 250 wartime kills. Sarge, who may or may not be psychotic, served for some time as a mob assassin, and has done well by his efforts. He trains Jake to perfection, then dies in a confrontation gone wrong: He forces Jake to kill him in a variation of ``the most dangerous game'' of human hunting human. Later, the remorseless Jake quickly becomes one of the mob's most reliable freelancers—until, that is, he's caught in a double- cross. Mr. C., a mob godfather, has his henchman Fredo hire Jake to kill US Senator Weingarten during a speech at an outdoor rally. Despite misgivings, Jake sets about the job, but just as he's about to take the senator out he learns that he's been set up. Shot by a detective who's been tipped off to his presence, Jake is paralyzed, his spine severed. But there's no evidence against him, and he's likely to collect a cool $5 million from the city. It doesn't matter: A depressed Jake starts on rehab convinced that he would rather die. Then nurse Angela and her uncle Dr. Graham sneak him into a new, highly experimental program aimed at rebuilding spinal cords. Jake recovers, secretly, and sets out to avenge himself on Mr. C and Fredo. Fast-moving, yes. Inventive, no.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-312-85910-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1997
A thrilling and satisfying sequel to the 1969 classic.
Over 50 years after an extraterrestrial microbe wiped out a small Arizona town, something very strange has appeared in the Amazon jungle in Wilson’s follow-up to Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain.
The microparticle's introduction to Earth in 1967 was the disastrous result of an American weapons research program. Before it could be contained, Andromeda killed all but two people in tiny Piedmont, Arizona; during testing after the disaster, AS-1 evolved and escaped into the atmosphere. Project Eternal Vigilance was quickly set up to scan for any possible new outbreaks of Andromeda. Now, an anomaly with “signature peaks” closely resembling the original Andromeda Strain has been spotted in the heart of the Amazon, and a Wildfire Alert is issued. A diverse team is assembled: Nidhi Vedala, an MIT nanotechnology expert born in a Mumbai slum; Harold Odhiambo, a Kenyan xenogeologist; Peng Wu, a Chinese doctor and taikonaut; Sophie Kline, a paraplegic astronaut and nanorobotics expert based on the International Space Station; and, a last-minute addition, roboticist James Stone, son of Dr. Jeremy Stone from The Andromeda Strain. They must journey into the deepest part of the jungle to study and hopefully contain the dire threat that the anomaly seemingly poses to humanity. But the jungle has its own dangers, and it’s not long before distrust and suspicion grip the team. They’ll need to come together to take on what waits for them inside a mysterious structure that may not be of this world. Setting the story over the course of five days, Wilson (Robopocalypse, 2011, etc.) combines the best elements of hard SF novels and techno-thrillers, using recovered video, audio, and interview transcripts to shape the narrative, with his own robotics expertise adding flavor and heft. Despite a bit of acronym overload, this is an atmospheric and often terrifying roller-coaster ride with (literally) sky-high stakes that pays plenty of homage to The Andromeda Strain while also echoing the spirit and mood of Crichton’s other works, such as Jurassic Park and Congo. Add more than a few twists and exciting set pieces (especially in the finale) to the mix, and you’ve got a winner.
A thrilling and satisfying sequel to the 1969 classic.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-247327-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With its flat, staccato tone and mournful mood, it’s almost as if the book itself were suffering from depression.
A young Philadelphia policewoman searches for her addicted sister on the streets.
The title of Moore’s (The Unseen World, 2016, etc.) fourth novel refers to “a long bright river of departed souls,” the souls of people dead from opioid overdoses in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Kensington. The book opens with a long paragraph that's just a list of names, most of whom don’t have a role in the plot, but the last two entries are key: “Our mother. Our father.” As the novel opens, narrator Mickey Fitzpatrick—a bright but emotionally damaged single mom—is responding with her partner to a call. A dead girl has turned up in an abandoned train yard frequented by junkies. Mickey is terrified that it will be her estranged sister, Kacey, whom she hasn’t seen in a while. The two were raised by their grandmother, a cold, bitter woman who never recovered from the overdose death of the girls' mother. Mickey herself is awkward and tense in all social situations; when she talks about her childhood she mentions watching the other kids from the window, trying to memorize their mannerisms so she could “steal them and use them [her]self.” She is close with no one except her 4-year-old son, Thomas, whom she barely sees because she works so much, leaving him with an unenthusiastic babysitter. Opioid abuse per se is not the focus of the action—the book centers on the search for Kacey. Obsessed with the possibility that her sister will end up dead before she can find her, Mickey breaches protocol and makes a series of impulsive decisions that get her in trouble. The pace is frustratingly slow for most of the book, then picks up with a flurry of revelations and developments toward the end, bringing characters onstage we don’t have enough time to get to know. The narrator of this atmospheric crime novel has every reason to be difficult and guarded, but the reader may find her no easier to bond with than the other characters do.
With its flat, staccato tone and mournful mood, it’s almost as if the book itself were suffering from depression.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-54067-0
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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