One character says that some books “confine the power” and will explode if opened. This book isn’t one of them. At almost...
A sci-fi thriller in which nefarious forces plan to sink the world into darkness.
Capt. Joe Ledger (Assassin's Code, 2012), who runs the Special Projects Office for Uncle Sam, is sent on no notice to Antarctica to investigate mysterious electromagnetic pulses and a device code-named Kill Switch. In another thread, Prospero Bell is an 11-year-old father-hating genius who has a perfect eidetic memory and says “I’m getting smarter all the time.” Dad returns the sentiment: “That little freak is nobody’s son.” Indeed, the adopted lad was born in a laboratory and dreams that he must build a God Machine. A code to running such a device may be hidden in ancient prayers and books containing the Unlearnable Truths that have been partly destroyed by “warrior priests.” Throughout his teenage years he creates the gizmo, a particle accelerator that opens a doorway to another dimension. Meanwhile, Ledger must deal with numerous disasters: a 737 crashes into a Marriott and kills at least 5,000 people, lights go out at a presidential debate, someone’s U2 mix stops on his iPod, and Ledger’s team faces “giant violent albino penguins.” Ledger and others hallucinate (no, really), and a dead man speaks. Much of this mayhem is the fault of the Islamic State group, especially the Mullah of the Black Tent, who plans to throw the infidels “into a world of darkness.” His dastardly plan is plausible because someone has stolen Kill Switch from a secret lab and shipped it to the Islamic State group. The thing is a “portable electrical null field generator,” i.e. a nasty EMP weapon. F-bombs fly, blood flows, and everyone screams at least once. In the midst of it all, Prospero says that “Evil is just a word,” and morals are whatever one can enforce.
One character says that some books “confine the power” and will explode if opened. This book isn’t one of them. At almost 500 pages, it’s bloated and juvenile.Pub Date: April 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-06525-4
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
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
An addictive psychological thriller.
When a mysterious novel appears on her bedside table, a successful documentary filmmaker finds herself face to face with a secret that threatens to unravel life as she knows it.
Catherine Ravenscroft has built a dream life, or close to it: the devoted husband, the house in London, the award-winning career as a documentary filmmaker. And though she’s never quite bonded with her 25-year-old son the way she’d hoped, he’s doing fine—there are worse things than being an electronics salesman. But when she stumbles across a sinister novel called The Perfect Stranger—no one’s quite sure how it came into the house—Catherine sees herself in its pages, living out scenes from her past she’d hoped to forget. It’s a threat—but from whom? And why now, 20 years after the fact? Meanwhile, Stephen Brigstocke, a retired teacher, widowed and in pain, is desperate to exact revenge on Catherine and make her pay for what happened all those years ago. The story is told in alternating chapters, Catherine's in the third-person and Stephen's in the first, as the two orbit each other, predator and prey, and the novel moves between the past and the present to paint a portrait of two troubled families with trauma bubbling under the surface. As their lives become increasingly entangled, Stephen’s obsession grows, Catherine’s world crumbles, and it becomes clear that—in true thriller form—everything may not be as it seems. But how much destruction must be wrought before the truth comes out? And when it does, will there be anything left to salvage? While the long buildup to the big reveal begins to drag, Knight’s elegant plot and compelling (if not unexpected) characters keep the heart of the novel beating even when the pacing falters. Atmospheric and twisting and ripe for TV adaptation, this debut novel never strays far from convention, but that doesn’t make it any less of a page-turner.
An addictive psychological thriller.Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236225-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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