A stylish story in which investigators aren’t afraid to get in too deep.
An experienced detective takes on an enigmatic shadow organization in Runkis’ (Three Proofs That God Exists, 2019) dystopian thriller.
In 2056, legendary investigator Willy J. Morro is brought out of retirement at the request of a U.S. senator. She needs the 91-year-old criminologist to help track down the Yuendi, a mysterious criminal organization that’s recently killed several operatives by somehow vaporizing them. The Yuendi—aka the Brotherhood of Chaos—has also been responsible for a string of unusual terrorist acts, such as jamming transportation computers to cause massive traffic jams; as Yuendi expert Ward Baxter thinks, “No one knew how many there were, where they came from, when they got started, or, more importantly, what on God’s green earth they were trying to accomplish—apart from mayhem and mass destruction for destruction’s sake.” Forty-eight-year-old Special Agent Bill Macalister from the U.S. Department of Justice has been assigned to play the sidekick to Morro’s grizzled veteran. Unbeknown to the former, Morro has reason to suspect that the Yuendi may have something to do with UFOs—and a government conspiracy to cover up their existence. The two investigators, plus Baxter and microbiology researcher Mary Jamison, must get to the bottom of the mystery, which involves a possibly mythical object called the Golden Cord of Arram. Runkis’ prose is curt and moody, which is in keeping with the author’s self-aware riff on detective fiction: “It was a large eucalyptus that was now badly charred and broken. Before the blast…it must have stood twenty meters high. It now terminated about three meters above the ground, all charred and splintered.” Morro, in particular, is a welcome addition to the stable of smug-but-capable investigative geniuses—in part due to his advanced age, and his oft-stated desire to celebrate his 150th birthday. Despite the novel’s familiar genre trappings, it’s rather ambitious in its themes, and as the plot ramps up, it goes in unexpected directions. Although the tale goes to some unnecessarily dark places, its mix of conspiracy and crime fiction makes for a generally entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking escape.
A stylish story in which investigators aren’t afraid to get in too deep.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5439-9248-9
Page Count: 234
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
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
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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