by Rory Piper ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 5, 2012
A predictable thriller with a high body count, uneven character development and a victorious romance.
Piper’s debut novel provides a modern twist on the Frankenstein trope of a man who creates a monster.
The story opens with the shady circumstances under which Harmond Crane creates his genetically modified son, Daniel. From there, the narrative zips through his youth when he discovers his powers. As an adult, Daniel tries to live a normal life but keeps getting sidetracked for examination by researchers. The last of these is Diane Krueger, a psychiatrist up for a Nobel Prize for a drug she created that could normalize Daniel. She takes him into her clinic to study his inhuman physiology and talents, and ends up falling in love with him. Too many people find Daniel a threat to their interests, and several collude to impede or destroy him, with Diane as collateral damage. The book accelerates in pace and danger as the lovers adopt an us-against-the-world mentality. Meanwhile, a policeman who’s been after Harmond for decades zeroes in from the outside. The narrative viewpoint shifts continually to provide a steady stream of information and insights into each character’s motivations and neuroses. But that cycle shortchanges the most important and interesting character: Daniel. His unique powers are sketched in scientific terms and occasionally a chapter dips into his psyche; however, the book focuses more on the characters that readers know well: twisted parents, spineless friends, narrow scientists and tenacious cops. Most are self-serving and unlikable, lacking in conscience. Integrity is maintained by Daniel and Diane, who, despite entering the story late, becomes the central character based on the number of pages she’s on stage and the number of men who are involved or obsessed with her. She struggles with the challenge of balancing her ethics as a researcher against her heart, but ultimately the choice narrows down to a simple right versus wrong.
A predictable thriller with a high body count, uneven character development and a victorious romance.Pub Date: May 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-1470096182
Page Count: 450
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
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
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by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 27, 2024
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.
A bear is hunting prey in Wyoming’s Bighorns. And not just any bear.
It’s bad enough that Clay Hutmacher, who manages the Double Diamond Ranch, has lost his son, Clay Jr., to a vicious attack by a grizzly bear. What’s much worse is that Clay Jr.—who’d been about to pop the question to game warden Joe Pickett’s daughter, Sheridan—is only the first of the victims over an exceptionally broad geographical area. Marshal Marvin Bertignolli is clawed and bitten to death over in Hanna. Sgt. Ryan Winner is found bleeding out north of Rawlins. Former Twelve Sleep County prosecutor Dulcie Schalk, one of two survivors of an ambush, doesn’t survive her final encounter. The four experts chosen to kill the grizzly rope Joe into their expedition, but since their quarry keeps turning up far from the last sighting, the most meaningful confrontation the Predator Attack Team has is with a pair of Mama Bears, animal rights activists who demand due process for Tisiphone, as they’ve dubbed the presumed killer. Box, who’s far too canny to leave Tisiphone alone on center stage, follows Joe’s old antagonist Dallas Cates as the ex–rodeo star is released from prison and embarks on his revenge tour, which takes him to Lee Ogburn-Russell, an inventor whose life Dallas saved, and Axel Soledad, a correspondent who shares so many enemies with Dallas that he suggests they go after them together. Franchise fans will appreciate new details about Joe’s complicated family, the obligatory high-country landscapes, and yet another corrupt law enforcer.
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593331347
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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