A gleefully convoluted tapestry of subplots that will have conspiracy theorists reading it a second time.
An Aussie gets caught up in a global conspiracy after he becomes a suspect in a political assassination in Wolfson’s debut dystopian thriller.
John Frankston is a political adviser at Australia’s Parliament House in 2027, after rising oceans led to the devastating Great Global Flood. When John stumbles upon the cryptic email of his friend, politician Frank Tsoukalos, he’s apparently seen too much. Soon, Frank is dead, and John’s on the run, accused of murder. He’s quickly captured by tERROR (“The Earth’s Representatives for Revegetation, Order and Restoration”), an ecoterrorist faction responsible for worldwide assassinations and bombings. But tERROR leader Jenny Fitzgerald tells John that he should truly fear a powerful, secret organization called Them, which may have ties to Clive, a Canadian whose accurate predictions of global catastrophes ignited a new, immensely popular religion, Delugion. John teams up with armed tERROR members, including former Israeli Defence Force officer Karen Blackstone. Despite this fact, however, the book contains very little action. There aren’t, for example, any significant gunfights or massive car chase sequences. What the book does have, though, is an endlessly enjoyable conspiracy. There’s a good deal of back story: Karen, along with a man named James Thomas, were discredited as scientists by Them, and there may be more to a Paris bombing for which Jenny is allegedly responsible. There’s also elucidation from political figures who may be involved with Them, which sheds light on the group’s origins. Wolfson augments his plot with intrigue, including distrust within tERROR and a mysterious man called The Guest, who seems to be spearheading Them. There are so many secrets among the characters that Wolfson easily avoids the soapbox by presenting immoral followers of both religion and science. The final act has enough twists to leave many readers dizzy. Despite John’s hasty assertion that “The pieces were starting to fall together,” only some of them do, leaving at least a couple of issues unanswered for a possible sequel.
A gleefully convoluted tapestry of subplots that will have conspiracy theorists reading it a second time.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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