|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
Taking a page from Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, Douglas Preston creates a resort featuring woolly mammoths and other genetically manipulated mammals in a natural "hundred-thousand-acre valley deep in the Colorado Rockies."
The action starts when a wealthy honeymoon couple is kidnapped and then murdered in the countryside surrounding the Erebus Resort. The county sheriff, James Colcord, along with Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Frances Cash, begin investigating what is thought to be an attack by eco-terrorists.
A drone search is undertaken due to the scope of the valley's size, and a search of three local mines gets complicated when The Jackman Mine maps are missing from the Eagle County Historical Society files. Cash and Colcord believe they are looking for a gang of killers and speculate they may be hiding in one of the mines' tunnels.
Cash and drone pilot Lisa Stein track down a malfunctioning drone only to discover it has been tampered with. They sense they are being watched as they recover the drone's pieces. They run to escape, and Cash spots humans dressed in "some sort of camo" all around them. A helicopter rescues the two women, and it discharges loud gunfire that scares off the folks surrounding them.
Concern mounts when a mammoth is found slaughtered and butchered for food. Then Sam Acosta, a dog handler, finds two missing hikers and reports they have been cannibalized.
Cash and Colcord believe that Erebus' Chief of Security, Andrew Maximilian, is keeping secrets – information they need to find and apprehend the killers. Who are the folks Lisa and Cash spotted, and where are they hiding?
Mr. Preston writes with a creative imagination and spins a compelling mystery about the recovery and manipulation of genetic material from extinct species. The tale begins like a police procedural investigating a kidnapping-murder, gradually transforming into intriguing suspense highlighted by the slant of science fiction.
§ Ruth Castleberry has worked as an investigator for Pinkerton's, a city desk assistant on the Charlotte News, free-lance writer, marketing/business strategy consultant, competitive intelligence practitioner and digital marketing consultant.
Reviewed by Ruth Castleberry, April 2024
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
