The premise is powerful, but thin characterizations make for an emotionally disconnected read.
Smith’s eco-thriller follows two unlikely allies as they attempt to take down an international ivory-trafficking syndicate that’s leaving endangered elephants on the brink of extinction.
After seeing his mentor get murdered by a rival gang, Chinese ivory smuggler Ming Wei vows to spend the rest of his existence attempting to atone for his depraved past by taking down an illegal ivory-trafficking syndicate and (he hopes) saving countless elephants in the process. (“The lingering horrors of the night, the death of a mentor—they wouldn’t fade without meaning. Ming Wei would step into the light, becoming the informant he never thought he could be, fueled not by guilt, but by a sense of purpose.”) In East Africa, Kenyan conservation officer Zara Okonkwo is futilely trying to protect the elephants in her sanctuary from poachers who are shockingly well organized and always seem to have inside information. Okonkwo suspects that her boss, Samuel Kimani, the head of the Kenya Wildlife Service, is working with an international organized crime ring and is profiting from the slaughter of the gentle giants. After confronting Kimani, Okonkwo is predictably suspended. When the Chinese police and Interpol get involved and pair Wei and Okonkwo together in an investigation to uncover the mysterious leader behind the globe-spanning operation, the former smuggler and courageous conservation officer learn they’re up against an organization much bigger and more powerful than they ever imagined. While the narrative’s setup is a compelling hook, the storyline has two major flaws: two-dimensional characters and an overuse of sensationalized dialogue. Wei and Okonkwo are only superficially developed—their lack of backstory and depth (apart from their unwavering dedication to their cause) precludes an emotional connection with the reader. The stilted dialogue, filled with far too many melodramatic declarations, renders the characters even more shallow; a surfeit of lines like, “today, we fight for justice. For Ming, for the elephants, for the future” quickly lose their impact.
The premise is powerful, but thin characterizations make for an emotionally disconnected read.Pub Date: March 6, 2025
ISBN: 9798313139661
Page Count: 477
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2025
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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