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COLLISION

A good yarn for the issue it raises, although the tension doesn’t crackle. A more apt title might be Near Miss.

A thriller from a former U.S. senator and defense secretary who clearly understands what he’s writing about.

Deep in space, an asteroid hurtles in orbit around the sun. On Earth, a company named SpaceMine lusts after the platinum and palladium it might pry from such extraterrestrial rock. SpaceMine’s CEO, billionaire Robert Wentworth Hamilton, has claimed it and named it. “May God bless America and Asteroid USA,” he announces. Meanwhile, Sean Falcone—former Army Ranger, U.S. senator, and national security adviser and current law partner at Sullivan & Ford, which represents Hamilton—watches a Hamilton press conference on TV. Shortly thereafter, he witnesses a shooting in his law office, where several people die. Is it “an interrupted mass shooting of lawyers” or the beginning of something far worse? A missing laptop and two dead Chechen terrorists may point to an issue with SpaceMine’s private asteroid—what if the company’s mining operations accidentally nudge it out of orbit and toward Earth? The resulting collision might wipe out humanity. Such a good premise and all the reader gets is a Washington, D.C., thriller with the usual heroes and suspects. Armageddon remains remote throughout this story, so don’t expect Bruce Willis to fly up to Asteroid USA and blast the sucker to smithereens, which would just create a bunch of giant rocks that could explode on Earth anyway. But as for that staple of thrillers, the ticking clock with the big red digits, forget about it. ETA to Earth, should the rock even be nudged in our direction, is 20 years from now. Yes, it’s still critical, and humankind needs to plan well ahead. But no, a possible disaster in 2035 doesn’t make for edge-of-your-seat reading. That said, the writing and storytelling aren’t bad.

A good yarn for the issue it raises, although the tension doesn’t crackle. A more apt title might be Near Miss.

Pub Date: June 2, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-7653-2765-9

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Forge

Review Posted Online: March 16, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015

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DEVOLUTION

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

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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.

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

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THEN SHE WAS GONE

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.

Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.

Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.

Pub Date: April 24, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018

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