Customer Reviews

Ground Zero and Beyond

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This book is a prime example of its best to write about what you know. The strongest and most interesting pieces of this novel are the forensic denistry bits. Although the details were gruesome, I was most captivated by the story when the main character was allowed to shine. The farther away from the dentistry the story gets, namely the al-Qae'da back story and the let's send the dentist and his ex-girl friend in to save the day are over written, cliched and sometimes downright hokey. This book's strongest and weakest points are one and the same: the events of September 11, 2001. The are some wonderful behind the scenes first hand knowledge that flush out the middle of the book but at the same time, the events are still so recent that the fictionalized bits stand out more than they would if the author had chosen to make up a completely fictional disaster. Perhaps in a few more years when the details have blurred more, this book will read better than it does now.

This book is built around an interesting "what if" scenario, and does touch upon some interesting issues along the way. I also see some potential for the main protagonist to develop into an interesting franchise character. Unfortunately, this story never completely drew me in and most of the characters weren't as well developed as I would have liked to have seen. I also found myself wondering about the primary plot device--the disc. Why wouldn't the terrorist simply have destroyed it prior to implementing the plot? If they were so certain that it would have been destroyed by the crash/fire, then why was everyone searching for it afterwards? These are the kinds of questions I found bouncing around my head while reading this book.

I'll be interested in reading the planned follow up to this book. This book shows the author's potential, and I'm curious to see what he has in store for his characters. (This review was based on a pre-publication Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) of this book)