Influx

Starred review from December 16, 2013
With this terrifying thriller, Suarez (Kill Decision) provides further support for the proposition that he’s a worthy successor to the late Michael Crichton. Scientist Jon Grady and his colleagues have just invented a device that can reflect gravity, a major breakthrough that has the potential to revolutionize physics. But Grady’s moment of triumph is short-lived. A Luddite terrorist, Richard Cotton (whose group is winningly described as “a branch of militant Amish who had settled on the mid-1980s as their permissible technological level”), captures Grady’s team and sets off explosives to destroy them and their creation. To Grady’s surprise, he survives the blast, only to find himself in the clutches of a seemingly omniscient U.S. government agency, the Federal Bureau of Technology Control, which monitors innovations and assesses their “social, political, environmental and economic impacts with the goal of preserving social order.” That brief requires the BTC to suppress advances, like the gravity reflector, for what it perceives as the greater good. Suarez once again mixes science and fiction perfectly. Agent: Raphael Sagalyn, Raphael Sagalyn Inc.

May 26, 2014
The new high-tech thriller from Suarez describes a rogue government agency that hijacks new inventions and holds inventors captive at a supersecret prison. The story plays out against a backdrop of artificial intelligence entities programmed to maintain the airtight security surrounding these sinister covert activities. Perhaps the most effective aspect of the recording is the enhanced machinelike sound of Gurner’s voice when he speaks for these complicated not-quite-human figures. The chilling refrain of “I am sorry, but I am going to have to try to kill you” packs a powerful punch. When these devices join the novel’s protagonist and his unlikely band of rebels in an uprising, angst and excitement are transferred to the listener. A Dutton hardcover.