Bannerman’s Ghosts
By John R. Maxim
William Morrow
Mystery
Hardcover
March 2003
www.harpercollins.com
390 pages
$24.95 USD
ISBN: 0-06-000584-X
When
Artemus Bourne opens the box, it doesn’t contain the fortune in diamonds and
anti-virals that he was expecting from his Angola research facility. Instead, in each of the three containers, he
finds a severed head. He already
suspects the identity of the person behind this, and he knows what he wants his
assistant, Chester Lilly, to do. He
wants Chester to locate Elizabeth Stride.
Elizabeth
Stride, once known as the Black Angel, one of the world’s most formidable
assassins, has been living a quiet life away from the horrors of her past. She tries to be a good role model for her
young friend Aisha, and misses her beloved Martin Kessler, who died trying to
save the lives of the people on the island where Stride now lives. She has a blue duffel, packed always, ready
to leave if anyone should find her. The
only thing she isn’t prepared for is the determination of Artemus Bourne, who
is a man without conscious, though he likes to pretend otherwise. He has influence in nearly every government
office, and all of them have been hunting for the very hint of her.
Paul
Bannerman, the head of a team of, well, mercenaries might be the term, except
that they’re good people, who do what they do because it’s their talent,
because it's what they are trained for, and because they believe they can do
more good outside the law than in playing within it. When he hears that someone is looking for Elizabeth, he finds
himself interested, especially when he hears who is searching for her. He finds her almost by accident, involving
himself and his crack team of experts in a deadly puzzle, for Artemus Bourne’s
research facility specializes in chimera viruses, horrifying combinations such
as Marburg and Smallpox, a deadly cocktail that has already been released in
Angola.
This
book has several elements that make it, and indeed, the series (for the books
are very much intertwined, even if they don’t follow always the same
characters, for instance you can read about Stride and Kessler’s last adventure
in Haven) work so extraordinarily
well. First, of course, there is the
core...characters. In this case the
characters are even more interesting, because they’re retired, trying to make
their lives in a quiet, affluent neighborhood, surrounded by people who think
that they are just average beings. They
think that Paul Bannerman is a happily married father who owns a travel agency,
that Molly Farrell is just a computer saleswoman, not a person whose state of
the art equipment, including surveillance cameras, is secreted through out
their quiet community. These highly
trained assassins and technology experts are really trying to live the peaceful
life...but of course, their unusual skills and perfect, synchronistic teamwork
make it impossible for them to be left alone.
Each person in the team is quite round and individual, whether it be the
firebrand Carla, whose reputation of being a cold killer is diffused by the
fact that she went fan-girl (off-page) when she found out that Elizabeth Stride
was around, or John Waldo, whose ability to break in anywhere in perfect
silence would be chilling, if he wasn’t on our side.
The
other main thing that makes this book in particular so good is the
premise. Maxim is careful to feed our
curiosity and worry, both with the dust jacket quote about how utterly
defenseless we all are from these viruses from an anonymous virologist for the
Centers of Disease Control, to his acknowledgement page, where he mentions that
a key virologist who helps Bannerman and says some pretty startling things is
real, just given anonymity to protect her job.
It heightens the tension, making this book hard to put down, and harder
to forget when the news speaks about new, deadly diseases and lack of cures, or
even clues.
5
out of 5 vials
Cindy
Lynn Speer, GWN Reviewer
April 16, 2003
Dean Koontz
Bantam, May 2003, $26.95,
624 pp.
Like
most Hollywood superstars, Channing, “The Face,” Manheim finds celebrity a duel
sword. Inside his Bel Air “fortress,”
Channing receives plenty of “gifts” from his adoring fans. However, lately one particular idolater has
begun sending macabre gifts like an apple cut in half, but sutured back into
one piece. Channing’s chief of
security, former LAPD cop Ethan Thomas, is concerned as the presents from this
bizarre fan turn eerier, nastier and more threatening with each arrival.
Ethan
is on full alert since the arrivals of the venomous bounty and protecting his
employer’s preadolescent son since his arrival. Following a clue, Ethan confronts a suspect, Rolf Reynard who
shoots and kills him. The next thing
Ethan knows is that he is alive inside his car with no wounds, but blood under
his nails. Spooked, Truman knows
something outside his acceptable range of perceptions is stalking the Manheim
duo, but he willingly will risk his life in an attempt to stop this malevolence
regardless of its origin and powers.
The
problem with THE FACE is that the book is 600 plus pages of over-the-edge
exciting suspense that hooks the audience into needing to finish it in one
sitting (expect a long but gratifying night).
The story line certifies why many readers consider Dean Koontz the king
of the suspense thriller with an uncanny twist or three to the plot. Ethan is a fine protagonist who is going to
learn the hard way a basic law of novel physics that between heaven and the
nether world there are endless possibilities that make a Hollywood scary movie
seem less of a nightmare than the “reality” painted by this awesome author.
Harriet
Klausner, GWN Book Reviewer
5/25/2003