Helpful Score: 1
Best known as the coauthor (with Douglas Preston) of such bestselling thrillers as Dance of Death, Child delivers a well-crafted and literate science fiction thriller, his third solo effort (after 2004's Death Match). Peter Crane, a former naval doctor, faces the challenge of his career when he investigates a mysterious illness that has broken out on a North Atlantic oil rig. Sworn to secrecy, Crane is transported from the rig to an amazing undersea habitat run by the military that's apparently pursuing evidence that Atlantis exists. Psychotic episodes among the scientific staff as well as the activities of a saboteur that threatens the project's safety keep Crane busy, even as some of the staff members confront him with concerns that exploring the Earth's core could be fatal to all life on earth. Crisp writing energizes a familiar plot, which builds to an unsettling climax with echoes of Child and Preston's The Ice Limit.
Menace is everywhere as naval doctor Peter Crane investigates mysterious illnesses at an even more mysterious underwater research facility in the North Atlantic. The scientists say they're excavating long-lost Atlantis, but Crane suspects that something weirder and more dangerous is under way. Thank goodness for narrator Scott Brick, who offers both equanimity and tension in his reading, which intensifies the drama while keeping the complex plot clear (if not believable). He also adds color through subtle characterizations of everyone from straight-ahead military types to obsessed researchers and truly creepy secret agents. I wished that the scary types didn't always speak so deliberately, but that's a very minor quibble in this well-performed entertainment.
Menace is everywhere as naval doctor Peter Crane investigates mysterious illnesses at an even more mysterious underwater research facility in the North Atlantic. The scientists say they're excavating long-lost Atlantis, but Crane suspects that something weirder and more dangerous is under way. Thank goodness for narrator Scott Brick, who offers both equanimity and tension in his reading, which intensifies the drama while keeping the complex plot clear (if not believable). He also adds color through subtle characterizations of everyone from straight-ahead military types to obsessed researchers and truly creepy secret agents. I wished that the scary types didn't always speak so deliberately, but that's a very minor quibble in this well-performed entertainment.
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