An intriguing look at the surprisingly perilous life of a geologist.
A nasty little piece of skullduggery made all the more so by the fact this fictional tale is based on real events in the author’s life.
When the Great Chilean Earthquake shook the country in 1960, it knocked the roof off the Chilean Central Bank in Talcahuano and millions of dollars in cash, gold, negotiable securities and jewelry were stolen. In Cohen’s tale, the culprits are two Chilean Navy seamen who are sent to protect the bank but stash the loot in a refrigerator instead. (In order to encourage service in Antarctica, members of the Chilean military are allowed to import white goods without the ruinous taxes as long as the goods travel with them to Antarctica first.) Thus the two thieves encounter an expedition sent to the Antarctic by the University of Wisconsin. Ted Stone is part of the expedition, and Stone is Cohen’s fictional stand in. In the neatly blocked out story that follows, it’s fun to try to discern the real stuff from the fictionalized. Probably most of it is true, including three grisly murders and a near-death experience for Cohen, but there is no doubt about the veracity of the expedition’s atmosphere, ably drawn and suitably paced. The entire route from Madison, Wis., to the Antarctic Peninsula is followed, with special attention paid to the hellacious storms at sea amid the powerful Shrieking Sixties winds and the potentially dangerous fieldwork where, if orcas don’t upend your boat and gobble you down before you get to your destination, you’ll likely fall in a crevasse when you arrive. Cohen doesn’t overdue the science, though he does introduce his gravity-related research and elements of his geological-specimen gathering, as well as a short course in amateur radio operation, clearly a hobby of the author’s, though also critical to the unfolding of events. The book has some mild quirks that interfere with the story’s flow—odd uses of italics and quote marks, strange footnotes—but the greatest mystery of all is why Cohen has put the story down on paper, when there may be many dangerous characters still out there.
An intriguing look at the surprisingly perilous life of a geologist.Pub Date: April 2, 2010
ISBN: 978-1452002712
Page Count: 218
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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