Thriller fans will enjoy this one, and internet aficionados may wonder whether the ending is so implausible after all.
A cyberthriller by a Swedish screenwriter who seems to have a movie in mind.
One afternoon, the power goes out in Stockholm and surrounding areas, “leaving vast tracts of Sweden in total darkness.” Everything stops, right down to the espresso machines. An elevator suddenly drops 30 floors, killing a man. Though power returns, trouble continues. Sara Sandberg, a panicky homeless drug user, thinks she somehow caused the blackout just by putting a CD into a computer. Poor Sara is the “girl who didn’t know she was about to die.” Her father is William Sandberg, a top Swedish cryptologist who’s been fired for unauthorized snooping and is immediately suspected of being an internet terrorist. More attacks follow, briefly bathing most of Europe in “an all-consuming white-hot light.” Someone hacks nuclear reactors all around the world. There’s a chaotic exchange of data worldwide, as if “everyone attacked everyone.” But no one claims responsibility or makes demands. William winds up on Interpol’s Most Wanted list for “conspiracy to commit terrorism,” even though no one knows who put him there. Meanwhile, his estranged wife, Christina, a tabloid journalist, is looking to get to the bottom of everything. There are more crashing elevators, three CDs with piano concertos on them, shortwave radio stations broadcasting mysterious number sequences, and a secret program called Floodgate that’s supposed to “make the world a safer place.” As the suspense builds, it becomes clear that there is something much bigger going on than a string of incidents. One character asks, “How long will society survive?” Eventually, William has a key insight that gives a dramatic twist to the tale, showing great imagination on the author’s part. A few implausible details tie everything together, but they’re both necessary and fun.
Thriller fans will enjoy this one, and internet aficionados may wonder whether the ending is so implausible after all.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-33502-7
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
A somewhat fragmentary nocturnal shadows Jim Nightshade and his friend Will Halloway, born just before and just after midnight on the 31st of October, as they walk the thin line between real and imaginary worlds. A carnival (evil) comes to town with its calliope, merry-go-round and mirror maze, and in its distortion, the funeral march is played backwards, their teacher's nephew seems to assume the identity of the carnival's Mr. Cooger. The Illustrated Man (an earlier Bradbury title) doubles as Mr. Dark. comes for the boys and Jim almost does; and there are other spectres in this freakshow of the mind, The Witch, The Dwarf, etc., before faith casts out all these fears which the carnival has exploited... The allusions (the October country, the autumn people, etc.) as well as the concerns of previous books will be familiar to Bradbury's readers as once again this conjurer limns a haunted landscape in an allegory of good and evil. Definitely for all admirers.
Pub Date: June 15, 1962
ISBN: 0380977273
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962
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