An intense, futuristic thriller that recalls the best of 1970s disaster cinema.
Vettori’s second thriller of a trilogy, set more than a century in the future, finds epidemiologist Syia Case separated from her family during a catastrophic earthquake.
The author offers a tale set in a post-World War III world where society has grown too comfortable with its ability to mitigate catastrophes. Some folks live quite happily on the moon, and those still living on terra firma regularly pack dangerous fault lines and fissures around the globe with, basically, high-tech glue. One character blithely tells Syia, “In the past 21 years, there has never been any seismic activity greater than 2.8 on the Richter Scale in locations where fusing has been completed.” Cue a massive quake that rocks the Midwest, reducing St. Louis’ Gateway Arch to rubble and forcing the mighty Mississippi River to change direction. All that heroic St. Louis resident Syia wants to do is save as many people as she can and reunite with her daughter, Marla, who was running near the Arch. Marla, who’s set to compete in the 2142 Summer Olympics on Earth’s moon, is a triathlete with Down syndrome who’s as courageous as her mother; when disaster strikes, she rescues babies from the raging deluge unleashed by the earthquake. Vettori’s detailed disaster-themed tale could conceivably prepare some present-day readers for real-life disasters. The author, an emergency-services professional, clearly has a taste for disaster fiction, and her take on the calamities erupting around her characters makes them feel real—and there are terrorists afoot, as well. Syia also doesn’t much like the Electromagnetic Sound and Holographic Isler Communication Operating Network that everyone’s using to communicate—especially the “increasingly popular brain implant version”—and it turns out that the good doctor is right to be wary of it. However, Vettori has effectively left that bit of the mystery for the final installment to come.
An intense, futuristic thriller that recalls the best of 1970s disaster cinema.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2025
ISBN: 9798895436264
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Austin Macauley
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
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
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