The Furies: A Thriller
Alpert, author of several technothrillers, including The Omega Theory (2011), adds an element of fantasy in his new book. The story begins with a guy in a bar being picked up by a beautiful young woman. Before their tryst can be consummated, the woman is nearly killed by armed assassins. John Rogers, the guy who had been hoping simply to get laid, is now on the run with the woman, Ariel, and he’s about to learn that she is not at all what he thought she was. In the course of the novel, Alpert asks us to believe that witches are real and that a small mutation in their genetic makeup could change the future of humankind. But—and as those who have read the author’s earlier books will know already—Alpert has a knack for making unbelievable things seem not only plausible but also completely real. The key here is Rogers, an ordinary man thrown into extraordinary circumstances, who has to learn a new reality on the fly; as he comes to accept, so do we. Alpert’s carefully constructed alternate history of witchcraft—and sorcery, too—is very clever. Good stuff. --David Pitt