Reading the initial book in the series first makes this taut thriller much more satisfying.
Former British television writer, producer and director Toyne cranks up the drama with the second entry in a conspiracy thriller series.
Taking up where the first volume (Sanctus, 2011) left off, New Jersey news reporter Liv Adamsen awakens to find herself hospitalized in the small Turkish town of Ruin. Liv is not alone: Kathryn Mann and a monk from the Citadel are also recovering from injuries sustained when fleeing the mysterious fortress. However, there are forces at hand determined to destroy all three, and that is something Kathryn’s son, Gabriel, cannot allow to happen. Gabriel helps Liv escape and find her way back home to the U.S., then begins to look for a way to return to the Citadel, which is now seemingly under assault from nature itself. Blighted trees and a dying garden have spread their disease to the humans who occupy the Catholic fortress, and no one knows how to stop what appears to be an impending worldwide catastrophe. As the Vatican’s moneyman, Cardinal Secretary Clementi, plots to eliminate Liv and her co-conspirators, Gabriel forges an alliance to help fend off what appears to be the realization of the End of Days. As he battles to save Liv from a terrible fate, Gabriel finds that one of the most important events of his life was a lie and that allies exist in places he would never have suspected. Toyne's first novel, Sanctus, set up the story of the Citadel and the mysterious thing it guards. Well-written, fast-paced and delivered with an admirable economy of words, this book offers an edge-of-the-seat story filled with action and adventure, as well as a puzzle that the main characters must somehow put together before the world simply disappears. If the book has a flaw, it’s that it doesn’t stand alone, and readers who have not progressed from the first book to the second will spend the first half trying to figure out what’s happening.
Reading the initial book in the series first makes this taut thriller much more satisfying.Pub Date: June 19, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-203833-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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