Power-wielding adversaries in a tale that blends technology and espionage make for a rousing story.
In this debut political thriller, a National Security Agency analyst suspects that the villain behind a terrorist attack on American soil is someone in government—and in the U.S.
When the CIA receives a report that terrorists plan to strike on Sept. 11, the NSA sends for Signals Intelligence engineer Erick Sheppard. He oversees Operation Bloodhound, which employs technology to locate and identify threats via cellphones. Bloodhound’s launch, however, activates a program that triggers the brain’s fear center, crippling citizens with panic attacks and nervous breakdowns. This marks Erick as a possible traitor, while President David Kozar, believing Congress was a specific target, asserts total control by declaring Presidential Supremacy. Erick’s own investigation leads him to the questionable death of Henry Zhang, a neuroscientist who worked for the CIA. Venezuela gets the blame for the terrorist assault, but Erick thinks those truly responsible are a little closer to home. The novel manages suspense throughout by not withholding information and revealing the villain(s) and motives from the start. This amps up the story’s intensity: readers know that someone has incriminating evidence against a higher-up, while Erick is often unaware that he’s in the same room as a baddie. Erick, a former Army captain, does find himself dodging bullets in at least one energetic action sequence. But he’s at his best when he succumbs to his nerdiness, unmistakably spellbound when he dons a contact lens with video/audio capabilities. Marino meticulously and adroitly maps out the nefarious plan, but the tale’s latter half gets a bit prolonged and would have benefited from some editing. Kozar, for instance, gives numerous speeches and implements changes, like cutting the corporate tax rate. But the scenes are largely verbose because, with a timeline of mere months, his amendments hardly move beyond concept. Dialogue, too, is sometimes bland; a villain details the elaborate scheme and caps it with a “Very cool huh?” Nevertheless, Marino knows that a protagonist with something at stake is the most riveting kind. Erick gets his hands on a recording that incriminates a powerful someone and debates turning it over to authorities—or ensuring his safety by keeping it to himself.
Power-wielding adversaries in a tale that blends technology and espionage make for a rousing story.Pub Date: May 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5053-6155-1
Page Count: 524
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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