Government skullduggery mixes thrillingly with SF invention and eco-concerns in this speculative tale.
In Heaton’s SF thriller, sinister forces converge on an environmentalist who holds the key to a teleportation technology with troubling side effects.
This novel, the second in a series, takes place in an alternative 2009, in which a groundbreaking United States president is in office—not Barack Obama, but another Black man, Jamal Williams, who is tasked with cleaning up the mess of an unnamed previous administration whose invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan collapsed the international banking system. With intel indicating that Saudi Arabia’s oilfields are secretly running dry, Williams is one of numerous players who approach the high-profile, well-heeled eco-activist Uma Jakobsdóttir. Readers of the previous installment of this series will recall that she is the daughter of the late physicist who developed revolutionary teleportation technology (called “LEAP”) meant to replace fossil fuel-dependent transportation. The new tech had a troubling, unforeseen side effect: LEAP portals, combined with supercomputers, can copy organic matter at the atomic level, allowing users—presumably rich and powerful ones—to make living backup clones of themselves, becoming functionally immortal. Fearing a nightmarish future of “ ‘[s]oulless creatures feeding off discarded atoms like vampires with no memory of their sins,’ ” Uma, six years earlier, attempted to discredit LEAP as a hoax perpetrated by an airline mogul. But President Williams and others have grasped the truth: It actually works. Uma is pressured by the White House to roll out LEAP to combat carbon emissions; in the shadows, liberated suicide-bomber fanatics from Gitmo, treacherous Deep State forces, and an assassination plot rachet the tension high and hold the reader rapt. The machinations and motivations here are a bit murkier than one might prefer, but the extrapolations of untested, paradigm-shifting technology keep the pages turning. An epilogue offers a tantalizing taste of the next installment.
Government skullduggery mixes thrillingly with SF invention and eco-concerns in this speculative tale.Pub Date: July 25, 2023
ISBN: 978-0956172037
Page Count: 412
Publisher: Rookwood Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.
Evildoers plan attacks from America to India, and Jack Ryan Jr. is a prime target.
In Washington state, a man and his family are murdered, and President Jack Ryan learns it is another Poseidon Spear incident. Three retired members of that counterterrorism group have been killed now, and the U.S. government suspects a mole in its midst. Meanwhile, the Umayyad Revolutionary Council believes it has a holy and wholly anti-American mission. Against this backdrop, Jack Ryan Jr., and his fiancée, Lisanne Robertson, visit Delhi, India, to attend the wedding of Srini Rai, the brilliant surgeon who attached Lisanne’s prosthetic left arm. Lisanne had lost her arm in Tom Clancy Shadow of the Dragon (2020). Jack and Lisanne are both operators working for the Campus, a covert group that executes secret presidential directives. A wedding is a happy occasion, and the engaged American couple intend the trip as a vacation. Jack and Lisanne will attend a sangeet, an elaborate pre-wedding party. But it isn’t long before they survive a suicide bomb attack. As with all Clancy novels, there’s plenty of action on a global scale. In simultaneous strikes, terrorists plan to contaminate America’s Western water supply with radioactive waste from Washington’s Hanford nuclear power plant, blow up a spectacular new bridge in Kashmir, and kill the evil Ryan—or Junior, at least. It will be At-Takwir, the end of days. There is an appealing mix of Indian culture, high-speed action, and the rich lode of details that characterizes the whole series. And in the background lingers the question on several characters’ minds: Have Jack and Lisanne set their own wedding date?
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780593718032
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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