A political thriller for readers on both sides of the aisle.
This debut political thriller explores the consequences of ushering in and maintaining a less corrupt U.S. government.
In 2059, the United States is run directly by its voters, without moneyed special interest groups manipulating politics. According to the Second Constitution, a politician’s committing fraud against his or her constituents is a treasonous offense. Enter President Beth Roche-Suarez, who’s about to approve the South American Free Trade Act. Her attorney, Bill Waverly, watches alongside the media as President Roche-Suarez sits with the politicians who wrote the legislature—and vetoes the act. Everyone is aghast, since the fulfillment of SAFTA is what the president campaigned on. As she explains, however, “any benefit would be short-lived and it would eventually cost American jobs.” Waverly believes she’ll be tried for high treason, so he visits his old professor George Comstock for advice. The encounter brings Comstock’s memory back to the Second Constitutional Convention, held in Philadelphia back in 2037. There, he argued to reframe the Constitution, but he also went head-to-head against Sebastian Irving, a delegate carrying a metallic blue folio. In the folio was a more malleable version of Comstock’s own treason clause, hinting that the Second Constitution was under siege even during its inception. It may seem that debut author McMahon is striking an implausible note early on by telling readers his world of 2059 values life—the president’s, no less—so little. It’s actually a brilliant tactic, which Comstock himself uses in the classroom; the plot is like a “tool to incite passion, to test his students’ understanding of the founding principles of the Constitution”—that is, to get students (i.e., readers) thinking about why America’s greatness has tarnished. Casual thriller readers may flinch at being so handled, but McMahon’ narrative nevertheless zips along, full of clever axioms: e.g., “Knowing what people hated was much more powerful than knowing what they wanted.” Lively flashbacks and fiery personalities make this more than just a memorable exercise in ethics.
A political thriller for readers on both sides of the aisle.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Black Osterich Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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
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