An intricate, action-filled, spy novel that moves at breakneck speed.
The names and the locales have changed, but the intelligence game remains the same in Malphurs’ over-the-top techno-thriller.
The world is changing: U.S. intelligence services are no longer done in-house; they are contracted out. The result is that many active agents, such as protagonist David Pearl, are let go. Knowing nothing else, Pearl reinvents himself, becoming a government intelligence contractor. He starts his own company, which gathers intelligence and provides security consulting. Meanwhile, all sorts of criminal activity blossoms: Someone murders a high-ranking U.S. official while he’s at a gym, and a Greek diplomat breaks the unspoken rules of the Greek Mafia and must run for his life. David is hired to find the diplomat and escort him back. A gorgeous female Greek intelligence office—sent along to help find the missing diplomat—complicates his search. Pearl and the girl find the diplomat, who is so reluctant to return that he assumes Pearl’s identity and disappears again. At this point, the action really blasts off, becoming grittier than any Vince Flynn novel. Along the way, the author introduces myriad characters that appear to be nothing but window dressing. No one is who they claim, and nothing fits. Guesswork and hunches predominate, and opinions mutate into facts; facts are molded by the powers that be to conform to the latest set of policies and protocols. David Pearl and his band of eccentrics have to sift through the truth to find the underlying reality. But in the end, somehow, almost magically, the author brings all the loose ends together, which results in one heck of a slam-bang climax.
An intricate, action-filled, spy novel that moves at breakneck speed.Pub Date: May 19, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475918472
Page Count: 372
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Answers are hard to come by in this twisting tale designed to trick and delight.
Three siblings on very different paths learn that their family home may be haunted by secrets.
Eldest daughter Beth is alone with her fading mother as she takes her final breath and says something about Beth’s long-departed brother and sister, who may not have disappeared forever. Beth is still reeling from the loss of her mother when her estranged siblings show up. Michael, the youngest, hasn’t been home since their father’s disappearance seven years ago. In the meantime, he’s outgrown his siblings, trading his share of the family troubles for a high-paying job in San Jose. Nicole, the middle child, has been overpowered by addiction and prioritized tuning out reality over any sense of responsibility, much to Beth’s disgust. Though their mother’s death marks an ending for the family, it’s also a beginning, as the three siblings realize when they find a disturbing videotape among their parents’ belongings. The video, from 1999, sheds suspicion on their father’s disappearance, linking it to a long-unsolved neighborhood mystery. Was it just a series of unfortunate circumstances that broke the family apart, or does something more sinister underlie the sadness they’ve all found in life? In chapters that rotate among the family’s first-person narratives, the siblings take turns digging up stories and secrets in their search for solace.
Answers are hard to come by in this twisting tale designed to trick and delight.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798212182843
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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