A delightfully bizarre and enthralling tale of good versus evil.
In Cook’s debut thriller, a government subcontractor follows cryptic messages to thwart the destruction of the civilized world.
Chase Memphis works for various agencies to help prevent crises, using an “unnatural intuition” to pinpoint danger. In Tanzania, he directs United States soldiers on a search-and-rescue mission that ends with a shocking, unexplained explosion that kills nearly 30 soldiers. He returns to his Washington, D.C., office—the Mud Room, so called for its beige walls, old brown carpet, and the messy cases that are assigned there. Desperate to discover the truth behind the disaster in Tanzania, he embarks on a journey to gather and study various pieces of artwork and an ancient document written by the Greek scientist Archimedes, convinced that these items contain clues to the mystery and warnings of evils that could tear humanity apart. For this international excursion, he teams up with Ellis Newton, an old friend, and Mercy Peabody, a new romantic interest. Chase comes to cautiously trust Faan, a strange, sometimes helpful man who pops up wherever Chase goes while insisting that it’s Chase who’s following him. The author fills this story with abstruse details: Chase can’t explain his premonitions, and it’s not clear what Archimedes and the others were trying to say through their work. Nevertheless, Chase fights to save the world from…some form of peril. And while that peril is mostly vague, a tangible, powerful villain is hot on Chase’s trail. This evildoer is one of the novel’s several indelible characters, as are Faan, who’s charming but too mysterious to be wholly reliable, and Helen, the Mud Room receptionist who functions as a surrogate mother to the orphaned Chase. Cook’s narrative takes readers around the world, including stops in London and Greece, and aptly depicts the sights: white buildings on Mykonos Island seen from above are described as “tiles lined up in haphazard rows.” The ending, like the rest of the book, is ambiguous and open to interpretation.
A delightfully bizarre and enthralling tale of good versus evil.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2023
ISBN: 9798987451205
Page Count: 210
Publisher: Zalika Productions
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days...
In 1876, professor Edward Cope takes a group of students to the unforgiving American West to hunt for dinosaur fossils, and they make a tremendous discovery.
William Jason Tertullius Johnson, son of a shipbuilder and beneficiary of his father’s largess, isn’t doing very well at Yale when he makes a bet with his archrival (because every young man has one): accompany “the bone professor” Othniel Marsh to the West to dig for dinosaur fossils or pony up $1,000, but Marsh will only let Johnson join if he has a skill they can use. They need a photographer, so Johnson throws himself into the grueling task of learning photography, eventually becoming proficient. When Marsh and the team leave without him, he hitches a ride with another celebrated paleontologist, Marsh’s bitter rival, Edward Cope. Despite warnings about Indian activity, into the Judith badlands they go. It’s a harrowing trip: they weather everything from stampeding buffalo to back-breaking work, but it proves to be worth it after they discover the teeth of what looks to be a giant dinosaur, and it could be the discovery of the century if they can only get them back home safely. When the team gets separated while transporting the bones, Johnson finds himself in Deadwood and must find a way to get the bones home—and stay alive doing it. The manuscript for this novel was discovered in Crichton’s (Pirate Latitudes, 2009, etc.) archives by his wife, Sherri, and predates Jurassic Park (1990), but if readers are looking for the same experience, they may be disappointed: it’s strictly formulaic stuff. Famous folk like the Earp brothers make appearances, and Cope and Marsh, and the feud between them, were very real, although Johnson is the author’s own creation. Crichton takes a sympathetic view of American Indians and their plight, and his appreciation of the American West, and its harsh beauty, is obvious.
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days of American paleontology.Pub Date: May 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-247335-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Jewell is absolutely a genius at building suspense, but the “man behaving badly” plot is getting tired.
Following her father’s sudden death, Aisling Swann is secretly horrified when her mother begins to date again—and she quickly becomes suspicious of this new flame.
Four years ago: A mysterious male narrator reflects upon his relationship with his wife—along with a few pointed comments about how she is aging. It quickly becomes apparent that this self-proclaimed “very pleasant” man is not who he seems; he already has a girlfriend on the side, and he’s playing both women with sob stories about his job and his traumatic past while taking money from them. Even as they get more and more frustrated with his lack of communication during ever-lengthening absences, he still gives them what they want: “a top-notch husband.” In the present day, Ash Swann; her brother, Arlo; and their mother, Nina, mourn the loss of her charismatic father, Paddy, a successful chef with a chain of lucrative restaurants. Nina receives a sympathy note from a man who claims to have worked closely with Paddy in the industry, which leads to a robust online flirtation that moves into the real world about a year after her husband’s death. Ash is living at home, mired in grief as well as her own mental health struggles, and she’s none too happy to see her mom dating—but particularly this handsome, egregiously suave Nick Radcliffe. Ash begins to notice some inconsistencies with his stories and his past, so she enlists Paddy’s ex-girlfriend Jane to help her investigate. Meanwhile, Ash’s story continues to intercut that of the mysterious man who is now married to his former girlfriend—and still up to his old tricks. Jewell’s cutting between past and present certainly allows revelations to ooze out at a slow, controlled pace; even as the reader makes obvious connections, the full picture remains obscure. Jewell has written some incredibly engaging and strong female characters, Nina, Ash, and Jane foremost among them. What would it have been like to split the narrative between them instead of giving so much voice—and thus narrative power—to the male antagonist?
Jewell is absolutely a genius at building suspense, but the “man behaving badly” plot is getting tired.Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9781668033876
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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