After their first appearance in a prospective series, the exemplary characters should make a welcome return.
Islamic terrorists threaten a graduate student and her son to get their hands on an artificial intelligence she developed that could locate U.S. Trident submarines in this debut thriller.
When radical Muslims successfully activate a virus that shuts down a U.S. sub’s electrical systems, it’s only the beginning of their machinations. The terrorists, led by Salah al-Zahrawi, now know the virus works but will need a way to find the Trident subs they want to infect. The National Security Agency picks up chatter of an upcoming Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency presentation by Columbia University grad student Kalian Delamagente that links paleoanthropology and submarines. Salah has a keen interest in the event, eying both Kali and her best friend and officemate, Catherine “Cat” Stockbury. Cat’s project is an even more powerful computer virus than Salah’s, while Kali’s AI Otto may have the capability of pinpointing subs. Dr. Zeke Rowe seems the perfect choice to go undercover as a visiting professor to Columbia: the former SEAL actually has a Ph.D. in paleoanthropology. Zeke right away doesn’t trust Dr. Wynton Fairgrove, who’s getting close to Kali, figuring he’s either aligned with the terrorists and aiming to steal Otto or perhaps has a more personal interest in her. But Kali can’t stay in the dark for long. After an increasingly impatient Salah kidnaps her teenage son, Sean, she may betray her country to save her child. The author refines her story with an absorbing protagonist. The genius grad student has an eidetic memory and recurrent headaches and was pregnant at 14, with the added menace of a stalker: Sean’s estranged father, Fletcher. Murray effectively generates suspense; Sean isn’t the only abductee, and Kali may lose her Columbia backing if she doesn’t finish her dissertation in time. Salah, too, is unquestionably a threat (he kills someone within the first 10 pages), and Fairgrove is unnerving in his obscurity—there’s a chance he could be a good guy. Nevertheless, a tighter story might have bumped up tension. Waiting for anyone to make a move, be it the villains or Zeke revealing what he knows to Kali, leads to a bit of a lull before the searing final act.
After their first appearance in a prospective series, the exemplary characters should make a welcome return.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2016
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 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.
