Engaging characters and nonstop peril make this delightfully campy adventure novel the epitome of a fun summer read.
Miller’s SF thriller pits humans against nature, including giant, man-eating fish.
In the year 2049, the Earth’s temperature has reached dangerous levels, precipitating a massive earthquake that breaks Pinellas Peninsula off from mainland Florida. Mays Jackson, who runs a salvage business, and his two children, Lily and Cooper, are among the citizens who find themselves suddenly afloat on what is dubbed “New Pinellas Island.” Their attempts to return home are complicated by Krakefish-infested waters: “Some were as big as twenty feet, weighing in at two tons, their mouths three feet wide with rows of razor-sharp teeth. They could eat through fiberglass and wood hulls as easily as biting into an apple.” Three years later, the residents of the island have cobbled together a makeshift society, complete with its own water collection and windmill systems. But Mays and his friend Chris Mann are informed by retired U.S. Navy Capt. Martin Ullman that they are slowly floating toward the Sigsbee Deep, a triangular basin 3 miles below the surface that forms the deepest part of the Gulf of Mexico. Once they hit it, their “island” will sink and all hope will be lost. As Mays and his neighbors scramble to find a way to get everyone back to the mainland before it’s too late, he discovers that giant sea creatures aren’t the only enemy that threatens them. The adrenaline-pumping story features wild inventions (including a giant boat outfitted with spikes and a junkyard submarine), terrifying sea creatures, and a scenery-chomping villain and is furnished with scientific and technical details that successfully contextualize the more outlandish scenarios the author presents. Snappy dialogue (“ ‘Vodka? Where on earth did you find vodka?’ Chris said. ‘I was a seaman for fifty years, Christopher, I don’t find vodka; I make vodka’ ”) and nail-biting suspense keep things moving along at a refreshingly brisk pace even as the novel tackles heavier themes of climate change and humans’ responsibility toward nature.
Engaging characters and nonstop peril make this delightfully campy adventure novel the epitome of a fun summer read.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 326
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2023
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
An enjoyable visit with an old character, but not one of Ware’s strongest.
Travel writer Lo Blacklock is back. Ten years after the events of The Woman in Cabin 10 (2016), she's attending the opening of a lavish Swiss hotel when, once again, a mystery intervenes.
A decade after she almost died on a luxury cruise and ended up exposing a murder plot, travel journalist Laura “Lo” Blacklock is trying to get back into the business post-Covid-19 and post–maternity leave. When she's invited to an exclusive hotel launch by the Leidmann Group on the shores of Switzerland’s gorgeous Lake Geneva, her supportive husband, Judah, insists that she should go, and her old boss, Rowan, says that if Lo can score an interview with the reclusive Marcus Leidmann, she’ll publish it in the Financial Times. Leaving Judah and the kids at home in New York, Lo is surprised by a last-minute upgrade to first class, which kicks off her trip in style. The hotel is appropriately awe-inspiring in both scenic location and effortless luxury, and Lo starts to put the memories of last trip’s trauma behind her, thinking that maybe she can just enjoy the experience this time. But then, at dinner, she's surprised to see at least three guests who were also on that original cruise, and when she finds a mysterious note in her room saying "Please come to suite 11 as soon as possible," she gets another shock. To quote William Faulkner, she realizes that “the past is never dead,” and soon Lo is careening across Europe on her way to England, only to find herself embroiled in another murder. The back half of the novel offers her the opportunity to continue her amateur sleuthing, and while she avoids much of the physical danger that plagued her on the cruise a decade ago, she is in very real legal trouble. This is the prolific Ware’s first sequel, and it's fun to spend time with Lo again, as she's both savvy and kindhearted. Unfortunately, the mystery is not as atmospheric and gripping as usual for Ware, though even a lesser Ruth Ware thriller is still worth reading.
An enjoyable visit with an old character, but not one of Ware’s strongest.Pub Date: July 8, 2025
ISBN: 9781668025628
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
