Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice-for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Still, for readers with a taste for the slightly gothic and the very gritty, this is ugly, busy entertainment-if too hyped up to work as a grimly real reflection of recent headlines involving child abuse.Īre we not men? We are-well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).Ī zombie apocalypse is one thing. Unfortunately, though a few of the final twists are surprising (and implausible), the basic secret is apparent very early on Alex's narration is marred by irritating, holier-than-thou psychology-lectures and the group-portrait of child-molesters here has a glamorized, sensationalized, simplistic aroma. and of that child-molester found dead in Alex's office! (But was it really suicide?) So finally, after a routine car-chase, more fatalities, and a kidnapping, Alex figures out the motivations behind the killings (some blackmail, some coverups)-while exposing a child-molestation ring involving all sorts of flashy, famous, well-bred people. Eventually all the leads converge on an elite island-community due north, the hometown of several suspects. circles-has strong connections to La Casa too! Could all this be just a coincidence? Alex thinks not as more gruesome corpses proliferate, he does some checking into La Casa's guru, his staff, and their brigade of volunteers. Furthermore, little Melody's pediatrician-a big wheel in M.D. Meanwhile, the Milo/Alex sleuthing focuses on Handler's patients and on his girlfriend-both of whom turn out to have connections to La Casa de Los Ninos, a home for disturbed/retarded children. (Alex discovered the suicide-ravaged body of the molester in his office.) It's very reluctantly, then, that Alex agrees to help his pal, gay cop Milo, with a murder case: psychiatrist Morton Handler and girlfriend have been killed in his apartment, and the only witness who saw the killer is emotionally fragile child Melody-the daughter of the apartment-complex manager. child psychologist Alex Delaware, who's "retired" (at 33) after having something of a nervous breakdown-following his consultant work on a harrowing child-molestation case. The narrator-sleuth in this rather overwrought psycho-mystery is L.A.
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