An intriguing, character-driven mystery/thriller with outer-space trappings.
In the blastoff of a new SF series, a manned Mars mission meets disaster after astronauts retrieve an incredible relic.
By 2040, Earth has been partially healed of its environmental devastation thanks to the inventions of South African tycoon Luther Karlhammer, whose foundation made the first manned Mars mission possible. The space shot highlighted a sharp division between people who want to explore space and those more concerned with Earth; the latter include the militant-terrorist Sons of Terra. The Mars mission aborts and returns to Earth, crashing into the ocean and leaving one amnesiac survivor, Filio Amorosa. There was an organic relic called “The Object” onboard, found on the red planet, which went missing in the crash. Over the next two years, a search for the Object continues, and Filio tries to join another Mars mission. Flashbacks to 2018 follow Dan Jackson, a maverick archaeologist determined to prove that the human race is far older than previously thought. To that end, he enters a pyramid-shaped anomaly in Antarctica built by unknown parties millions of years ago. Jackson’s unfinished manuscript ties in with the manifesto of the Sons of Terra, and Agatha Devenworth and Pano Hofer, two Europol agents, attempt to retrace the missing scientist’s steps. Shadowing them is a mysterious man in black with frightening powers. The narrative piles enigma upon enigma in commendable fashion for about four-fifths of the novel, then finally reveals some answers in a lively denouement with an open ending that points to the next volume. No shortage of questions remain, however. Fans of SF should also be aware that, in this installment, the off-planet action is kept to a minimum. There’s also little hard-science speculation, although there’s a glossary of terms included at the end. Still, there are some good shudder-inducing moments as well as instances of science-fictional awe and wonder.
An intriguing, character-driven mystery/thriller with outer-space trappings.Pub Date: March 4, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-71-675536-9
Page Count: 450
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Answers are hard to come by in this twisting tale designed to trick and delight.
Three siblings on very different paths learn that their family home may be haunted by secrets.
Eldest daughter Beth is alone with her fading mother as she takes her final breath and says something about Beth’s long-departed brother and sister, who may not have disappeared forever. Beth is still reeling from the loss of her mother when her estranged siblings show up. Michael, the youngest, hasn’t been home since their father’s disappearance seven years ago. In the meantime, he’s outgrown his siblings, trading his share of the family troubles for a high-paying job in San Jose. Nicole, the middle child, has been overpowered by addiction and prioritized tuning out reality over any sense of responsibility, much to Beth’s disgust. Though their mother’s death marks an ending for the family, it’s also a beginning, as the three siblings realize when they find a disturbing videotape among their parents’ belongings. The video, from 1999, sheds suspicion on their father’s disappearance, linking it to a long-unsolved neighborhood mystery. Was it just a series of unfortunate circumstances that broke the family apart, or does something more sinister underlie the sadness they’ve all found in life? In chapters that rotate among the family’s first-person narratives, the siblings take turns digging up stories and secrets in their search for solace.
Answers are hard to come by in this twisting tale designed to trick and delight.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798212182843
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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