A well-written imagining of how India and Pakistan could be pushed to the brink of nuclear disaster.
A rogue nuclear weapon and a ticking clock lie at the heart of this engaging thriller by the author of The American Mission (2014).
Terrorists plan to explode a small nuclear bomb in Mumbai, India. But, of course, “there really is no such thing as a small nuclear bomb,” as Palmer writes. The disaster would likely trigger a fourth war between India and Pakistan and ultimately give the U.S. a pretext to destroy all Pakistani nukes. Former U.S. diplomat Sam Trainor discovers the elaborate plot. He’d been too outspoken for government work and is now employed by Argus Systems, a Virginia-based consulting firm providing foreign intelligence and analysis to the CIA; Argus’ Cassandra Project creates computer models to predict possible nuclear terrorist attacks. Sam, a widower with a beautiful daughter, Lena, is secretly having an affair with a married woman who works for the Indian Embassy in Washington. Argus sends him from Virginia to Mumbai, where he finds plenty of vivid settings and action. Shadowy terrorists linked to Argus apparently have placed the nuclear device near where Lena works among the Dalit—formerly the untouchables—in Mumbai’s malodorous slums. The bomb might kill a hundred thousand Dalit in that city of 20 million, serving a greater good in the eyes of some. The characters are not always what they seem, and tricky twists result. A red-digit timer in a Mumbai slum counts down the seconds to the feared holocaust, so Sam and friends mustn’t tarry. One might wonder what purpose those timers serve for the terrorists, but they’re surely a useful cliché for thrillers. And they reinforce tension even if the overall outcome is eminently guessable. Meanwhile, a few chapters wander back to the battleship Maine, the days before Pearl Harbor, the JFK assassination, and other digressions that slow the story’s momentum but hold the reader’s interest.
A well-written imagining of how India and Pakistan could be pushed to the brink of nuclear disaster.Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-399-16571-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
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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