Relentlessly paves the way for what promises to be an epic third book.
The second book in Guillermo del Toro (director of Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy, etc.) and Chuck Hogan's (Devils in Exile, 2010, etc.) The Strain trilogy finds civilization teetering on the brink.
The Strain (2009), the first book in the trilogy, was built on a compelling premise: What if vampires were not campy, caped bloodsuckers, or dark-but-hunky Twilight-esque heartthrobs, but rather the victims of a ravenous blood-borne parasite? And what if, as part of an elaborate plan, an ancient carrier of said parasites set out to sow its bloodsucking oats by starting an epidemic in New York City? A vampire threat like that calls for an epidemiologist, in this case Dr. Ephraim Goodweather of the CDC. The Strain closed with Ephraim and his companions—CDC colleague (and sometime love interest) Dr. Nora Martinez, exterminator Vasiliy Fet and Holocaust survivor and seasoned vampire hunter Abraham Setrakian—narrowly failing to destroy the Master, orchestrator of the outbreak, as his pandemic was starting to pick up steam. As this book opens, things have gone from worse to much, much worse. With more and more of its citizens turning into vampires, New York plunges into anarchy. Dr. Goodweather and his cohorts face increasingly long odds as they attempt to stem the tide, while protecting Dr. Goodweather's son Zach from his mother, a newly minted vampire bent on "turning" her beloved son. Meanwhile, the Master, working with sickly but fabulously wealthy Eldritch Palmer, continues to engineer the contagion's spread and the collapse of human society, much to the chagrin of a group of powerful vampires known as the Ancients, who prefer to wield their substantial power and influence from the shadows. The key to stopping the Master seems to lie in a very old, silver-bound book, but against the Master's minions and Palmer's wealth and influence, the book appears to be well out of our heroes’ reach. The series stands out from the recent spate of vampire-themed entertainment thanks to its semi-scientific premise, convincing characters and wealth of almost cinematically vivid scenes of terror. This book continues in the same chilling vein.
Relentlessly paves the way for what promises to be an epic third book.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-155822-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days...
In 1876, professor Edward Cope takes a group of students to the unforgiving American West to hunt for dinosaur fossils, and they make a tremendous discovery.
William Jason Tertullius Johnson, son of a shipbuilder and beneficiary of his father’s largess, isn’t doing very well at Yale when he makes a bet with his archrival (because every young man has one): accompany “the bone professor” Othniel Marsh to the West to dig for dinosaur fossils or pony up $1,000, but Marsh will only let Johnson join if he has a skill they can use. They need a photographer, so Johnson throws himself into the grueling task of learning photography, eventually becoming proficient. When Marsh and the team leave without him, he hitches a ride with another celebrated paleontologist, Marsh’s bitter rival, Edward Cope. Despite warnings about Indian activity, into the Judith badlands they go. It’s a harrowing trip: they weather everything from stampeding buffalo to back-breaking work, but it proves to be worth it after they discover the teeth of what looks to be a giant dinosaur, and it could be the discovery of the century if they can only get them back home safely. When the team gets separated while transporting the bones, Johnson finds himself in Deadwood and must find a way to get the bones home—and stay alive doing it. The manuscript for this novel was discovered in Crichton’s (Pirate Latitudes, 2009, etc.) archives by his wife, Sherri, and predates Jurassic Park (1990), but if readers are looking for the same experience, they may be disappointed: it’s strictly formulaic stuff. Famous folk like the Earp brothers make appearances, and Cope and Marsh, and the feud between them, were very real, although Johnson is the author’s own creation. Crichton takes a sympathetic view of American Indians and their plight, and his appreciation of the American West, and its harsh beauty, is obvious.
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days of American paleontology.Pub Date: May 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-247335-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
