A global fraud tale remains laudable in its frankness; it’s not what the baddies are hiding, but the frightening lengths...
London investigators look into possible corporate fraud involving a shipping company that may retain secrets by resorting to murder in this debut thriller.
While hijacking one of Han Chan Lines’ ships, Somali pirates kill Chief Engineer Stephen Desmond, a rather calculated act akin to an execution. This is suspect because Desmond was a proposed whistle-blower who’d compiled evidence for journalist Sarah Grelsham: in a case of potential fraud, HCL’s allegedly been slowing vessels intentionally to allow pirates to board. Sarah hasn’t received said evidence yet, but her ensuing disappearance could mean that someone’s covering his or her tracks. Lloyd’s and managing agent Verre Slater enlist corporate adviser Laughton MacAllister—specifically, Michael Leithead’s team. Members include former Fraud Squad detective Manon Wyn Roberts and Drew Rydstrom, once in the Royal Australian Navy but later pulled from a Nigerian jail by Michael. The team searches for Desmond’s reputed evidence, as well as another, unknown individual in whom the engineer confided, while a couple of relevant bodies turn up. The killer(s) could be anyone from HCL, with probable links to drugs and Mafia-esque Chinese Triads, or Gyrescom, a maritime satellite communications company HCL uses. The investigators, however, may likewise be in danger when one of them, trying to reach a contact for information, becomes a target himself. Considering its global plot, Adamson’s story is surprisingly simple. Readers, for example, know who the villains are and whom they’ve tortured and killed well before Drew and others discover anyone’s dead. Fortunately, this gives rise to pure suspense, with Drew and Manon often unaware they’re in the presence of a murderer. Characters, in contrast, are gloriously complex, especially the somewhat murky good guys. Investigator Diego da Souza’s a hacker who enjoys snapping upskirt photos, while team newbie Manon’s facing trouble for old boss and lover Greg Hart’s illicit deeds—and an affair with a pregnant celebrity’s husband has turned Manon into the nation’s antagonist. Still, it’s clearly a team of heroes, as the band ultimately pursues the mysterious Puppet Master truly in control. Violence is generally unflinching but doesn’t quite prepare readers for a startling, unforgettable ending.
A global fraud tale remains laudable in its frankness; it’s not what the baddies are hiding, but the frightening lengths they’ll go to stay in power.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Constance
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 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
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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