by James Rollins ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 19, 2022
This one’s fast-moving fun.
A plague threatens to burst from the Congolese jungle and infect the world in the latest bloodcurdling adventure in the Sigma Force series.
“Stay away. Dear God, don’t come out here”: That's the warning ignored by Sigma Force’s Tucker Wayne and his faithful soldier dog, Kane. Near Kisangani, “the literal heart of Africa,” a fearful contagion runs amok. Scientists and locals suffer attacks from crazed ants, bats, and myriad other jungle fauna. Some of the populace becomes nearly catatonic—what’s going on? The answer appears to be viruses, those half-living creatures said to outnumber all the stars in the universe. An infected moth lands on skin with bloodcurdling effect. Baboons go crazy and tear people apart. Ants develop spikes, as though their mandibles aren’t enough for ripping into flesh. The normally cranky hippos are even crankier. And “the deeper we go, the worse it will get.” The evil mining CEO Nolan De Coster loves all of this—he wants a massive pandemic in which he can become the savior, but he’s not all the good guys have to worry about. Even the flora fight them. They encounter intelligent fungi and angry trees as they get closer and closer to Mfupa Ufalme, the accursed Kingdom of Bones. Thriller readers love ticking clocks, and this yarn has several, like the timer on the mother of all bombs that is going to explode any minute now. The story is a well-mixed blend of action, science, and occasionally over-the-top imagination. That bats are “furry sacks of viruses” is an easy sell—judgmental trees, not so much. Readers will like the characters, especially the brave Kane and Benjamin Frey, the biologist with an eidetic memory and mild Asperger’s. This excursion into the depths of Africa is more enjoyable than Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, although it gets a little gross in spots.
This one’s fast-moving fun.Pub Date: April 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-289298-0
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
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by Tana French ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2024
An absorbing crime yarn.
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New York Times Bestseller
A divorced American detective tries to blend into rural Ireland in this sequel to The Searcher (2020).
In fictional Ardnakelty, on Ireland’s west coast, lives retired American cop Cal Hooper, who busies himself repairing furniture with 15-year-old Theresa “Trey” Reddy and fervently wishes to be boring. Then into town pops Trey’s long-gone, good-for-nothing dad, Johnny, all smiles and charm. Much to her distaste, he says he wants to reclaim his fatherly role. In fact, he’s on the run from a criminal for a debt he can’t repay, and he has a cockamamie scheme to persuade local townsfolk that there might be gold in the nearby mountain with a vein that might run through some of their properties. (What, no leprechauns?) “It’s not sheep shite you’ll be smelling in a few months’ time, man,” he tells a farmer. “It’s champagne and caviar.” Some people have fun fantasizing about sudden riches, but they know better. Johnny’s pursuer, Cillian Rushborough, comes to town, and Johnny tries to convince him he could get rich by purchasing people’s land. Alas, someone bashes Rushborough’s brains in, and now there’s a murder mystery. The plot is a bit of a stretch, but the characters and their relationships work well. Trey detests Johnny for not being in her life, and now that he’s back, she neither wants nor needs him. She gets on much better with Cal. Still, she’s a testy teenager when she thinks someone is not treating her like an adult. Cal is aware of this, and he’s careful how he talks to her. Johnny, not so much: “I swear to fuck, women are only put on this earth to wreck our fuckin’ heads,” he whines about Trey’s mother, briefly forgetting he’s talking to Trey. The book abounds in local color and lively dialogue.
An absorbing crime yarn.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780593493434
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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SEEN & HEARD
by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 27, 2024
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.
A bear is hunting prey in Wyoming’s Bighorns. And not just any bear.
It’s bad enough that Clay Hutmacher, who manages the Double Diamond Ranch, has lost his son, Clay Jr., to a vicious attack by a grizzly bear. What’s much worse is that Clay Jr.—who’d been about to pop the question to game warden Joe Pickett’s daughter, Sheridan—is only the first of the victims over an exceptionally broad geographical area. Marshal Marvin Bertignolli is clawed and bitten to death over in Hanna. Sgt. Ryan Winner is found bleeding out north of Rawlins. Former Twelve Sleep County prosecutor Dulcie Schalk, one of two survivors of an ambush, doesn’t survive her final encounter. The four experts chosen to kill the grizzly rope Joe into their expedition, but since their quarry keeps turning up far from the last sighting, the most meaningful confrontation the Predator Attack Team has is with a pair of Mama Bears, animal rights activists who demand due process for Tisiphone, as they’ve dubbed the presumed killer. Box, who’s far too canny to leave Tisiphone alone on center stage, follows Joe’s old antagonist Dallas Cates as the ex–rodeo star is released from prison and embarks on his revenge tour, which takes him to Lee Ogburn-Russell, an inventor whose life Dallas saved, and Axel Soledad, a correspondent who shares so many enemies with Dallas that he suggests they go after them together. Franchise fans will appreciate new details about Joe’s complicated family, the obligatory high-country landscapes, and yet another corrupt law enforcer.
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593331347
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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