As in previous novels, Somoza (The Art of Murder, 2006, etc.) tweaks literary conventions and metaphysical matters as much...
A group of scientists try to manipulate time and space, with deadly and far-reaching results.
The story spans 20-plus years, from 1992 Milan to 2015 Madrid, where physics professor Elisa Robledo teaches string theory (the conceptual challenge to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity positing nine additional spatial dimensions) and is an enigma to all around her. She seems to have no romantic partner, no friends and never loses her calm or has a hair out of place. Abruptly, a cryptic message (at first unexplained to the reader) fills her with terror and a belief in her own imminent death. The story flashes back a decade, when Elisa was an ambitious college student. She becomes the protégée of brilliant professor David Blanes and, presumably because of her beauty, attracts the attention of a loopy scientist named Maldonado. These three and a handful of others undertake a secret project dubbed “Zig Zag,” attempting to tweak string theory and, by extension, the parameters of space and time. (In the novel, the roots of this experimentation go back more than a decade, to Italy.) Chapters alternate between the work done for the Zig Zag project in 2005—complete with charts and graphs and theoretical discussions: “History is what happened already, but the past is still taking place”—and present problems menacing Elisa and her associates. These include shadowy figures, mysterious phone calls and, worst of all, the deaths of several others who worked on the project. Elisa appeals to her colleague, esteemed science professor Víctor Lopera, to help her learn the truth. Can she avoid becoming the next victim?
As in previous novels, Somoza (The Art of Murder, 2006, etc.) tweaks literary conventions and metaphysical matters as much as scientific theories. The suspense and thrills he creates are deliciously intellectual rather than visceral.Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-06-119371-2
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Rayo/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
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
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
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