Review: "Fun Thriller"..........
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 10, 2013
It's very rare now a days that you pick up a new self publishing author's novel and get an unexpected surprise...I read the premise on top and it's compared to HBO's "Big Love" meets CBS's "NCIS....This story ended up being more like my favorite series on SHO, "Homeland"..It took off running fast with non-stop action all the way to an explosive ending with a count down..Yet, the storyline flowed seamlessly without me having to turn back a couple of pages and say what part is this..This story turned out to be an excellent Bioterrorism/Thriller, with a gory airborne contagion..Great characterization of everyone in the story..Where the author actually made me care about this "eccentric family"..Only thing is that the prologue opens with the son who narrates most of the story at times, is upset about his parents sexual preferences...(I am not going into details and it doesn't detract from the story, but I felt you really didn't need it..Who knows, it maybe more relevant in part 2)....The actual plot was scary, realistic and stood it's ground..Great research went into this book for the proper procedures of a Counter-Terrorist Team with Homeland Security, and CDC all working together..Shows you how the CDC fly their TOP Agents in to quickly quarantine, isolate, and how they work continuously around the clock..They have a limited number of hours to figure the biochemical structure and a cure for a brand new contagion that has never been seen before....This story left me breathless and excited to read this author's next part in the series....This is a stand alone story with a conclusion, so you think.....Let me introduce you to the very odd, super intelligent Callahan Clan as  14 yr old Neil calls his family..There is Mom and Dad..Dr's Larkin and Tigh who both head the CDC Crisis Response Team..Rachel, their 16 yr old daughter who is a very popular, genius girl with an IQ of 130...She is interested in politics, runs for student body president every year and has a nice lucrative side job making extra money..Brother, 15 yr old Jack who is also a genius, very brilliant musician and thinks of himself as a chick magnet..He has a special high priced, side job making money tutoring students on slick techniques to pass exams on material you just can't understand..Then there's sweet Neil or "Monkey"  as he is lovingly called by his parents, who just doesn't feel like he quite fits in with the rest of family's dynamics..He is a regular teen boy who has a normal IQ of 120..Yet, I found that through the entire book he may have been solving the crime quicker then the rest, but often dismissed in a funny way like he is still a small child..Showing up at very dangerous places that he doesn't belong, where Larkin freaks out and quickly slips into the protective, Mother roll.....That's all I will say about the entire crime that occurs at the Grande Plaza Hotel that triggers a very deadly chain reaction...Believe me you will enjoy reading and get a kick out of solving this high tech/thriller....I loved it and couldn't put it down.....