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DOKTOR GLASS

Name: DOKTOR GLASS
Author: Thomas Brennan
ISBN: 978-0-425-25817-0

by Thomas Brennan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 31, 2012

Another reason to rejoice: Finally, somebody’s moved steampunk out of London.

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Steampunk whodunit from the author of the New York–set mystery The Debt (2005).

The soon-to-be-inaugurated Transatlantic Span, the 19th century’s crowning feat of engineering, bridges the Atlantic from Liverpool to distant New York City. Beneath the bridge, on the Mersey docks, a corpse turns up. Inspector Matthew Langton of the Liverpool police finds the body’s face has been expertly sliced away. More troubling still, the victim was dressed as a Span Company security guard but bears the tattoos of a Boer Irregular. Langton, himself traumatized by his own experiences of the Boer War and still grieving for his recently deceased wife, Sarah, wonders if there’s a conspiracy afoot to assassinate Queen Victoria, who’s due in the city in a few days to officially open the bridge. But in that case, why do so many individuals seem keen to suppress the investigation, from Langton’s boss, Chief Inspector Purcell, to the chairman of the Span Company, Lord Salisbury? Worse, key witnesses keep turning up dead, and the press seems remarkably well-informed of the investigation’s progress. Is somebody leaking information? Even more curious, all the victims show strange burn marks on their necks, and Langton is forced to consider a connection to chilling rumors of the soul-snatcher Jar Boys and their elusive underwriter, the mysterious Doktor Glass. Perhaps professor Caldwell Chivers, suspiciously knowledgeable about such matters, or his assistant, the saintly Sister Wright, know something they’re not telling. And what of Maj. Fallows, who represents himself as a Home Office man but clearly is something else altogether? Other than the inherently improbable concept of the bridge itself, Brennan’s backdrop and plot are remarkably well-crafted, with visceral, gritty details, a fascinating set of mysteries and a memorably tormented investigator.

Another reason to rejoice: Finally, somebody’s moved steampunk out of London.

Pub Date: Dec. 31, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-425-25817-0

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Ace/Berkley

Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012

Categories:

FANTASY | SCIENCE FICTION | HISTORICAL FANTASY | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MILLION DOLLAR MAN
by Thomas Brennan

- BOOK REVIEW
THE DEBT
by Thomas Brennan

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New York Times Bestseller

DEVOLUTION

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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Our Verdict

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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.