β Scribed by David Lindsey
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Forensic artist Paul Bern uses his impressive talents as a sculptor to reconstruct a face on an anonymous skull brought to him under mysterious circumstances in Lindsey's latest in a long line of expertly constructed thrillers (_The Rules of Silence_, etc.). The more Paul works on the skull, the more he's convinced that there's something distinctly disturbing about the emerging features. Soon after he figures it out (long after the reader has done so), he finds himself caught up in a murky world of spies, smugglers and international terrorism. Forced to abandon his idyllic central Texas home, he travels to Mexico City, where he must impersonate his own, recently murdered, CIA agent twin brother. Heavy Rain is the code name of the mission; the purpose is to capture or kill the world's most feared terrorist, Ghazi Baida. There's a beautiful agent, Susana MejΓa, and the usual collection of Mexican hoods, but the real showstopper is Vicente MondragΓ³n, a man whose entire face has been removed in a drug vendetta, leaving him with nothing more than exposed muscle, bone, gristle, protruding lips and a naked pair of googly eyes. This horror is kept antiseptic by a thin transparent membrane that Vicente must spritz at regular intervals. The novel's suspense lies in Paul's ongoing efforts to maintain his identity as his own brother and at the same time attempt to uncover Baida's terror plan. The plot is deftly handled, the characters are sharp and memorable, there's a shocker twist at the end and the background information on faces, or the lack thereof, is fascinating.
Copyright Β© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Paul Bern, a forensic artist, has a fascinating job: re-creating the facial features of homicide or accident victims. But his job gets even more fascinating when a woman shows up at his door with a skull in a bag. She believes it's the remains of her husband, and she wants Paul to confirm her suspicion. Paul soon learns some things about himself that shock him, and in no time he's railroaded by the U.S. government into helping them ferret out a group of terrorists in South America. This is a troublesome novel from a brand-name thriller author. Its plot is needlessly far-fetched (you can feel Lindsey struggling to justify putting his fish-out-of-water protagonist into the places the plot requires him to be). Its characters are thin, and Alice, the 17-year-old girl whose "cognitive disconnect" allows her to sense when someone is lying, belongs in a different novel altogether (perhaps something by Dean Koontz, who knows what to do with this kind of character). The prose is workmanlike, for the most part, although the final chapter contains some of the worst writing of the year. Although Lindsey has a large fan base, and he has written some good novels, this is not one of them. It will sell, but finishing it--even for his keenest fans--will be an act of sheer willpower. David Pitt
Copyright Β© American Library Association. All rights reserved
π SIMILAR VOLUMES
A mysterious woman bearing a human skull and a terrifying story draws Texas forensic artist Paul Bern into a conspiracy involving a clandestine U.S. intelligence operation in Mexico City's underworld.
When a mysterious woman arrives at the home of Paul Bern, a forensic artist who lives in Austin, Texas, she brings him two things: a human skull that she smuggled out of Mexico and an incredible secret that brings Paul face to face with the unimaginable. Library : General Formats : EPUB ISBN
### From Publishers Weekly Forensic artist Paul Bern uses his impressive talents as a sculptor to reconstruct a face on an anonymous skull brought to him under mysterious circumstances in Lindsey's latest in a long line of expertly constructed thrillers (\_The Rules of Silence\_, etc.). The more Pa
The creeping undead attacks started almost two years ago, now Liauna keeps the hope of her family and friends alive. Safe behind the walls of her faction, she makes supply runs to keep everyone fed, as well as some simple pleasures like twinkies and books, On a routine run, three glorious men not
**New York Times Bestseller** A weapon of catastrophic destruction. A nation on the brink of unspeakable disaster. And the ultimate enemy lies closer to home than anyone realizes. Only maverick CIA agent Ryan Kealey sees the threat for what it really is--but Washington refused to listen. W