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DEAD ON ARRIVAL

More science faction than science fiction, this is a novel requiring close reading to comprehend, and fear.

In a thriller with the gut-wrenching tension of a doomsday countdown clock, Richtel (The Doomsday Equation, 2015, etc.) goes high concept, viewing worldwide connectivity through cell-level immunology.

Observing our ever connected social media world, a crazy genius obsesses over the idea that “ubiquitous transmissions had the impact of putting people into kind of a catatonic state” and decides to press pause. After the rogue Google contractor recodes a good idea for nefarious purposes, the story begins when world-renowned infectious disease specialist Dr. Lyle Martin heads for a Colorado conference. Martin’s been lured to the site of the wacko’s beta test. From airport baggage handler on down, he discovers people comatose in midseizure. Puzzling enough, but he later comes awake home in San Francisco with the sketchiest of memories of the Colorado visit. Martin’s a well-drawn character, a driven, obsessed man so smart his marriage collapsed because of his passion for his work. Supporting characters include his fellow witnesses to the Colorado episode, the female airline captain and her gun-toting first officer. Martin’s ex-wife is another cast member done up in enviable style. The villain, not so much—standard Freudian twisted childhood warping into an Adam and Eve fantasy—all motivated by a god complex, because “people are gorging on ideas that reinforce their political and social views...losing their ability to empathize, cooperate, compromise.” Toss in a massive march on Washington by gun owners worried about the Second Amendment, and things threaten to wobble toward social chaos. The theme is as current as tomorrow’s news, but the pace sometimes outpaces clarity.

More science faction than science fiction, this is a novel requiring close reading to comprehend, and fear.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-06-244327-4

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2017

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DEVOLUTION

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

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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

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CONCLAVE

An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...

Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.

Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”

An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.

Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016

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