Customer Reviews

Rising Phoenix

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I read LOTS of thrillers and, after a while, they get to be pretty much predictable. Not so with Rising Phoenix. Every time I thought I knew what was coming next, everything changed. Mills does a great job with an exciting plot, interesting characters, and a roller coaster of a story line.

No less than the thriller genre's top gun, Tom Clancy, has placed his imprimatur on first novelist Kyle Mills. After identifying the author in a eulogistic book jacket blurb as the son of "an old friend and former FBI agent," Clancy dubbed the young writer "a new genius for taut, compulsive adventure writing." That's surely a help, but also part hype for Mr. Mills hasn't reached the genius level yet. Nonetheless, Rising Phoenix is a wingdinger of a rim shot.

A gripping tale that comes too close to the possible for comfort, this recent addition to the pantheon of psycho/thrillers is complexly plotted with hair-trigger action and characters that ring true. It's an adventure punctuated with swift jabs of dialogue and enlivened by knowing description. When a trek into the Columbian jungle's darkly humid interior begins, readers feel the heat. Morally corrupt figures alternately fascinate and repulse. That is the case with one of the story's protagonists, John Hobart, a diabolically clever sociopath. This villain's skewed philosophy was formed early on with the unexplained death of his abusive father. Here's the gospel according to Hobart: "Most of humanity's problems were rooted in centuries of misguided and often contradictory moral teachings. For a man with the intelligence and resolve to rise above this tangle of right and wrong, there was no problem that couldn't be solved simply, quickly, and finally." He puts his thesis to an acid test.

A dismissed DEA agent and former security chief for an egotistical tele-evangelist, Hobart contrives a way to combat America's escalating drug problem - poison the cocaine and heroin supply. Not with just any poison but with a time-released attacker of vital organs, Orellanin, the lethal extract of a mushroom found in Poland. As legions of people across the country become ill and die, discovering the person behind this venous plot becomes the FBI's number one priority. Chosen to head the investigative team is Mark Beamon, an agent who has been put down for his unorthodoxy yet recognized as one of the Bureau's best. He was Hobart's partner during their days with the DEA.

Columbia's drug cartel, headed by Luis Colombar, also has an interest in discovering who poisoned the drugs. Death isn't good for business. The President of the United States, with an "administration perceived as being soft on crime" wants the killing stopped, and an Eastern mafia chief needs to protect his turf.

Fear of an excruciating demise does cause drug use in America to decline, but then there's a chilling shift: public favor begins to swing toward the murderous poisoners. After all, they've done something about the drug problem when government and law enforcement officials could not.

A riveting cross continent pursuit ends with Hobart and Beamon face to face, each knows his adversary well. Reaching this climatic scene was a bit like attempting a 2,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Some of the pieces in Rising Phoenix did not seem to fit, but that's a minor shortcoming in what is otherwise an impressive first novel.

A pretty entertaining read. While this book isn't spectacular, it still is a good read. The author takes a different spin on fighting the drug war that adds interest to this book. Unfortunately, the characters were average and didn't stand out for any reason in particular. While this doesn't diminish the enjoyment of the book, it would have been nice if stronger characters that more aptly fit the plot had been included. But you'll still find the book enjoyable, because the story moves along at a nice pace, and it is interesting to see the response to this fight against drugs.

I am reviewing this book as a book on tape and will make specific comments on that aspect of it at the end of this review.

I have drudged and slogged my way through a number of books and books on tape lately and this one was like a bolt of lightning - it came out of nowhere and really was a welcome surprise for me. I won't go into the plot details, since they are readily available in the book description at the top of this page - however, this is a great bit of writing. The premise is thought-provoking, to say the least. In a nice twist, the antagonist is well-developed and the protagonists are not. The story is plot-driven and by that I mean we don't get bogged down in unnecessary details, such as focusing on weapons at great length, etc. - as can sometimes happen in a techno-thriller.

Really a top notch piece of work.

As for details concerning the book on tape - it is read by Campbell Scott (known for his work in 'Dying Young' and 'Dead Again'). He does a first-rate job - he reads the characters so differently that you really don't notice that the same man is reading all of the different parts.

Good work all around.

I very much enjoyed this book. Read it by the pool on vacation and hated to put it down.

Mark Beamon is a maverick FBI agent (picture Dennis Franz) tired of all the crap and politics in Washington. So he accepts a demotion to the Houston office to get away from it all.

He is, however, one of the top investigators in the FBI and when drug users start dropping dead by the thousands, Beamon is called in to investigate.

The bad guy, John Hobart, is smart and does not (like in alot of books) make stupid mistakes. The cat and mouse between him and Beamon is fast paced and interesting.

In other reviews, I noticed some people complaining about product endorsements and people saying "Uh" alot. Didn't bother me a bit, I never even really noticed. So don't let that put you off this book.

I look forward to Mr. Mills next book.

NOTE: If this is ever made into a movie I think Dennis Franz would be great as Mark Beamon.

I thought the synopsis sounded good that's why I bought the book.Thank goodness I bought it at a clearance sale as it was definitely not worth paying for.I think the author tried to cash in on Tom Clancy's name to sell the book.It's so boring I can't bring myself to finish reading it.I'm a great thriller fan but this is quite awful as the characters are not well developed.The hero isn't even very likable ...the author doesn't bring the characters to life like so many authors do.Don't waste your money on this book.

Now I aint no pretentious book reviewer, but even an idiot like me can recognize poor character development and lazily researched settings. Take for example that scene where the characters go out in the "desert" around Houston, Tx. I used to live in Houston. Did that area turn into a desert since I left in 1990? I realize that when one is reading fiction, one does a certain amount of reality suspension, but when I came to that Houston desert scene, I was nearly disgusted enough to throw the book against the wall. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the plot. I know this may seem like a trivial complaint, especially to someone not familiar with the topography of Texas, but hey you Phoenicians, how would you like it if you were reading a novel and the author wrote: "Kirby climbed to the top of Camelback Mountain and squinted into the glint coming off the Pacific Ocean."

BOOK REVIEW
by Mary Cousins in the July 1997 issue of the Grapevine, the official publication of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc.

Rising Phoenix by Kyle Mills

The pre-publication edition of Rising Phoenix by Kyle Mills came across my desk and, as I picked it up, I read the glowing recommendation by Tom Clancy on the cover. After praising this first novel, Clancy thanked the author's dad, Darrell Mills, for sending him the manuscript.

If you are looking for a good brisk read with an FBI-DEA background, you'll be glad he did too.

Kyle Mills crafts a quick-step story with credible characters, plenty of action and a satisfactory denouement. Unlike many first novels, Rising Phoenix doesn't seek to show off the author's vocabulary at the expense of the story. Starting with a surprising solution to the drug problem in the United States, Mills delineates a villain worth pursuing and a somewhat disheveled and unorthodox Special Agent leading the chase.

The White House, the Bureau, TV evangelists and drug dealers bring a variety of motives to this escalating tale of greed, politics, righteous anger and investigative professionalism. Mills dishes up a potent story, carried by characters that enrich and enliven the plot.

The author catches the feel of the Bureau- although you may not much like some of the fictional personnel at Headquarters. Mills kept an observant eye on his surroundings when he visited his dad's office over the years. Dad is Darrell Mills (1967-93), Tidewater Chapter member of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI.

Rising Phoenix should be in bookstores by August 1997 and is recommended as a lively thriller deeply rooted in the stuff of today's headlines. Publisher is Harper Collins. END

269

I really enjoyed this book. One of the main reasons I like it was there was a lot of gray area in this book and the author let's you draw your own conclusions on who was the 'bad' guy and who was the good guy. We know the main character, FBI Agent Mark Beamon, is the/a good guy because it says so on the back but what about the guy he is tracking down? The man whose solution to permanately stop the drug business is to posoin a massive amount of cocaine and heroin at the source and here in the US. Is he truly bad? I loved how the book showed people supporting him and what good he was doing (drug use and drug crimes plummetting). It also showed the other side of his crusade, innocents trying a drug dying horribly and recreational users, Senator's children, etc. also dying and the movement to stop the murder. I loved the ending and how the author didn't rush it like so many other authors do. He resolved everything at a perfect pace and the book keeps you thinking well after you are finished. Is our Drug policy failing miserably? Are we wasting money and time trying to stop them when we could use it for other things? What can we do about it? All good questions that are looked at in this book.

Highly recommend it.

Kyle Mills impressively conceived "Rising Phoenix" is a thought provoking thriller that briskly chronicles a plot to curtail the use of drugs in the U.S. by poisoning the incoming supply.

Celebrated TV evangelist Reverand Simon Blake had built up a cash glutted empire with tastefully appointed offices in a skyscraper in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Blake's current passion was a war on the drugs that had infested our society. He was determined to take drastic measures to make an impact on this plague. His head of church security, John Hobart a cold calculating ex-special forces operative in Vietnam, with a CPA had been bounced out of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Hobart was commissioned by Blake with the job of riding the society of the scourge of drugs. He devised a ingenious plan to poison the drug supply at the refining stage with an obscure lethal mushroom based substance.

Hobart's plot was successfully undertaken resulting in a massive wave of deaths due to poisoning by user of both cocaine and heroin. The FBI, early on, put their top investigator but loose cannon Mark Beamon in charge of stopping this plot. Beamon, a former colleague of Hobart's, was stymied politically in his investigation as public sentiment indicated that people were not displeased by the decrease in drug use and death of the users.

The plot interestingly proceeded as an investigation into a crime that nobody really wanted stopped went forward.