Thursday, August 25, 2016

APOCALYPSE BY DEAN CRAWFORD




Publisher:     Simon and Schuster
Published:     November 8, 2012
ISBN:        978-0857204752
Genre:       Speculative Fiction
Format:     Ebook
Obtained via:  Publisher via Edelweiss
Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina  Ginalrmreviews@gmail.com

FOUR HEARTS


Not exactly their dream job, bounty hunters Nathan Warner and Nicola Lopez do their best to get by.  At times they find themselves skirting the law, but they do get their man.  And sometimes someone gets them.

Dean Jarvis comes from the shadow world of the Defense Intelligence Agency.  Operating on a need-to-know basis Jarvis has a job that experience and a mysterious message from a wanted man have assured him only Nathan and Lopez can solve.  After all, when the killer himself leaves cryptic messages for Nathan, who else would you call?  Adding to the mix is the disappearance of a plane full of returning scientists – from the Bermuda Triangle.  The race is on to find the killer before they run out of time.

I saw the blurb for Dean Crawford’s Apocalypse which included two subjects I can’t resist – time travel and the Bermuda Triangle, I had to read it.  Crawford did not disappoint.  It’s not exactly a time travel—in fact Nathan and Lopez do not engage in any time travel at all.  But they are caught in a web where the past and the future collide—and not necessarily in the present.  That’s not as confusing as it may sound.  In a well-developed story, full of non-stop action, duo chase a would be killer using knowledge gleaned from Einstein and company’s experiments from WWII.  There were a few “Lifetime” movie moments I could have done without and I didn’t care for the “cliffhanger” at the very end, but the overall read was a page turner. 

APOCALYPSE is apparently the third book in Crawford’s series.  I’m normally a sticker for reading an entire series in order just so I have the full backstory on the characters as well as enjoying seeing how the author develops them over time.  In this case, there was just enough back story to catch a reader up on the characters, but overall the book is a complete in itself standalone—even with the cheesy “cliff hanger” at the end.  (Those dangling parts of a new story leave me feeling like the author is trying to lure you into buying another book by not finishing the original story and I don’t much care for it.)  I will be going back to read the first two in this series—as well as checking out a few of Crawford’s other reads simply because I really enjoyed this one. 

You do not have to be a fan of speculative fiction or “other” normal subjects to enjoy this one.  All you need is to be read for some non-stop action and some breath holding moments while Nathan and Lopez get themselves out of some touchy situations.



This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.


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