Customer Reviews

Pinocchio Syndrome

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
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This is one of the best thrillers I have read this year. The story grabs you on the first page and you have to keep reading to see how everything turns out. This book has an intriguing plot and such a frightning concept that you have to wonder if this scenario could really happen. Evil politicians, real life characters and a nail biting pace keeps you up late trying to finish as soon as possible. I like this one and hope to see more from Mr. Zeman.

After "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons", both by Dan Brown, I felt hard-pressed to find another novel that would capture my interest as much. Hooray to Dan Zeman, a first time author. "The Pinocchio Syndrome" was a totally captivating read.
It begins on a cruise ship filled with some unusual shipmates.
Their demise causes severe unrest in the U.S. This sets the stage for lack of confidence in the current governmental leadership as no culprit can be found. Add to that a mysterious fatal contagion that causes paralysis and eventual deformation of hands and feet...wow!...and the country is ready to call for new leaders, fearing terrorist activity.
Just when you think you can predict what is going to happen...NOOOO! I loved this book, especially the flawed reporter. You will never look at "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" in the same light. Trust me!

The fact that Steve Rubin personally bought The Pinocchio Syndrome brought major foreign rights, such as $200,00 from the Germans and $150,000 from the Italians.

But Rubin wanted to joint-account two books by Zeman. To those of you who aren't authors, joint-accounting means taking money away from the second book to pay for poor earnings from the first book (using creative accounting, of course). Zeman refused, having read on Page 1 of "How to be an Author," "Never let them joint account you."

So Doubleday settled for one book. Zeman signed a 2-book contract with the British publisher, who insisted on a 2-book deal.

Rubin killed the book by buying zero advertising, while Zeman's agent, Deborah Schneider, allowed Zeman to spend $18,000 on radio advertising.

Doubleday at the time was developing a trade paperback line and a mass market paperback line. They refused The Pinocchio Syndrome for both lines.

As a result of this, Zeman had to cancel the second British book and drop the pseudonym.

The book got a rave review from the Washington Post, which was quite an accomplishment since the story was set in Washington.

Zeman is now writing literary novels, and is still counting the money from the $750,000 in foreign rights earned by the hardcover.

After a limited nuclear explosion of a cruise ship, as well as, the appearance of a disease in the United States that paralyzes the victim leading to a deformity of the hands and feet (similar to a donkey and called The Pinocchio Syndrome), the rating of the US President is at an all time low. As high ranking US officials start contracting the disease, a crisis develops and the Presidency appears threatened. Colin Goss, an ultraconservative, feels that Mideast terrorists are to blame and would think nothing of wiping out a billion people. His popularity is soaring as the President's is crashing. Investigating the disease is reporter Karen Embry. As she investigates she begins to uncover a vast conspiracy with millions of lives at stake.
There appears to be a dumbing down of thrillers by first time authors and this one is one of the dumbest I have read in quite some time. Nonetheless, it is quite entertaining. The disease described in the story is quite silly and the reason the disease is spread is even sillier. With better material, David Zeman may be a writer to watch. However, in this case, I would skip this debut effort. Rating: C.

A book that reads well and keeps our attention till the end.At first,I thought that the writing style was a little more than average at best,but the description of the sea and its waves towards the end of the book is absolutely splendid.The author should develop his obvious ability for beautiful descriptions that he has only shown at the end of his book

Set in an unspecified year of the near-future, Secret Service Agent Joseph Kraig and freelance medical reporter Karen Embry have a tough task: to find out who is spreading a strange new disease in the United States, what exactly the nature of that disease is, and what the goal of this type of terrorist attack is. The illness is odd, to say the least. Its symptoms begin with a sudden overwhelming paralysis that leaves its victims with normal vital signs and thought processes, while their ability to perform any action at will is totally impaired --- in other words, they know and understand that something is happening to them but they can't do anything about it. They can't move at all in response to a command, not even their eyes, which of course also means they can't eat or in any way function alone, although the autonomic nervous system continues to work, so they breathe and blink (but that's about it).

And that is only the first stage of the strange disease. The final stages are downright bizarre: victims develop deformities of the hands and feet that seem to turn them into something resembling hoofs --- fingers and toes fuse together, and in the case of the feet, the toes draw down sharply to almost meet the heels, and both hands and feet grow a hard, chitinous covering. It is this hoof-like deformity that gives the book its title, referring to a part of the Pinocchio story in which the perfidious puppet-boy is turned into a donkey.

The first political figure to be struck down is the sitting U.S. Vice President, an amiable ex-jock who holds about half the unnamed President's popularity clout --- and this is a fictional president who is in serious trouble for being ineffective at handling terrorism, both foreign and domestic. He is losing ground fast to an ultraconservative billionaire named Colin Goss, whose overtly Hitlerian solution is to kill them all. "Them" being just about anybody who isn't more, rather than less, white with origins in what used to be called Western Civilization. Goss's rising popularity got a big boost with an event that is recounted in the book's prologue: a cruise ship with America's best and brightest teenagers on board --- winners of an academic contest --- vanished at sea, vaporized by a hydrogen bomb-blast, which was caught on videotape by another boat nearby but fortunately (for them) out of range. No known terrorist organizations have taken responsibility for this outrage, but what else could it be but terrorism?

Sharing protagonist space with the Secret Service agent and the reporter is an attractive Senator and his wife, both of whom are soon placed at peril as this plot progresses.

Most likely by now, any frequent reader of thrillers will know where this story is going, and will not be wrong.

David Zeman has mastered the thriller form, which is in itself no small accomplishment. He has well in his grasp the fast pace, the multiple story lines, the shifts in point of view, and the proliferation of characters. He also has the advantage in this book of having chosen a topic both timely and relatively (so far) unexploited in fiction. Sadly, what he does not have is the sort of credible plot that compels us to keep reading regardless of the one-dimensional nature of his characters. Perhaps Zeman will do better next time. Until then, unless you're seriously fascinated by anything having to do with biological terrorism, you might prefer to give this one a pass.

--- Reviewed by Ava Dianne Day

I thought this book was awesome! I have already reviewed it, but after reading such negative comments, I felt that I had to restate my initial feelings...especially after getting my friend's opinion on the book. She, too, couldn't put it down. It was a two day adventure for her also. I throughly advise anyone out there to give this book a try. Honestly, I can't understand where the problem lies. Lots of intrique, plots twists, biological mayhem, and so much more. Could it get any better! I think not.

See synopsis above.

Well, to start with, I really enjoyed this novel. The premise was a little unbelievable but the entertainment quotient was high. I thought the characters were more than one dimensional and seemed to think there was depth to quite a few of them.
The story itself was sometimes repetitive (meaning certain descriptions were repeated many times). This is good entertainment. I look forward to the next Zeman novel knowing it will be as good or better.

Recommended.