Review: Excellent thriller you won't be able to put down
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 24, 2013
This book is a great thriller that will keep you on your toes. A scientist has engineered a fungus that can potentially kill Coca plants, and only Coca plants. His work could go a long way toward destroying the cocaine industry. The government begins the process to take over his research for its own purposes, but there’s a leak in their security and a big-time drug lord comes to America to take him out. You’ll follow the scientist who is grappling with the guilt of endangering his staff and family, the people working to save him, and the people trying to kill him.The science in this book is easy to follow and the implications are obvious and huge. It’s the sort of research you could see the highest echelon of politicos getting involved in and the sort of research you have to keep top secret. So the power struggles and espionage throughout the book don’t seem unrealistic. And the fact that the staff in the lab doesn’t fully know what they’re working on doesn’t seem too unrealistic either. The need for secrecy is everywhere in this book which makes it much more suspenseful and it’s not easy to guess the ending. It can be frustrating at times because you won’t always agree with the choices characters make, but you can always see their point of view.What’s interesting is that you don’t spend much time with the Sloan, the scientist behind it. Or the rest of his family, really. Most of the book is following the bad guys and the good guys with Sloan’s movements primarily used to move the plot along. It’s a really unique take on a thriller when the guy to be protected feels a minimal character. Don’t get me wrong, he’s definitely a part of the story. But you build a stronger connection with Franco—his guardian angel—than you do with him. It highlights all the work that goes into protecting someone. Especially when parts of that protection aren’t exactly sanctioned (Franco is not).The bad guys’ leader is brutal and thorough. You can’t ask for a more evil bad guy to cheer against. The intrigue in the book is which of the good guys is actually helping the bad guys. All you’ll know is that someone involved in protecting Sloan is actually being paid to help get him killed. No worries, I won’t give it away. And you won’t know until the author is ready to tell you which is something I really appreciate. All too often you find that the spy is obvious from the get-go or there is so much back and forth in the book that you can’t make up your mind and are completely distracted in figuring out who had the candlestick in the library. You won’t spend an excessive amount of time wondering who the spy is; instead you’ll be focusing on what evil thing the bad guys are currently up to and hoping the good guys will stop them (but be warned, the good guys don’t win all the battles in this war).There are so many motives in this book that it creates suspense and keeps it from being an easy story: “Well go round up the bad guys since you know where they are hiding out.” There is a need to catch the spy since he’s clearly a high-ranking official (those are the only ones who know about the project). There is a need to protect the research because it could do a lot of good. And there is a need to protect the people working on the project because you don’t want to put people in harm’s way. These goals don’t always allow for one over-arching strategy, so the characters get increasingly frustrated and the plot gets more and more complicated. But Claypool doesn’t let things get out of hand; he pulls the plot together without any crazy departures that can lose readers.This book was an entertaining read and I didn’t want to put it down. The plot develops at a good pace and the suspense doesn’t take long to build. While it involves politics, it doesn’t get lost in political soap-boxing. It happens, but most of the plot is bad guy v. good guy and there are enough pieces to the bad guys’ plan to keep you moving. You won’t guess the very ending of the book which I found refreshing. It’s a good read for anyone who likes spies, suspense, and intrigue.