Ground Zero-F. Paul Wilson

Ground Zero
F. Paul Wilson
Tor, Sep 15 2009, $25.99
ISBN 9780765322814

On 9/11 a person in a boat in New York Harbor detonates explosives planted in the Twin Towers at about the same that al-Qaeda agents commit suicide by crashing airplanes into the two buildings. The boatman quietly escapes as the Towers collapse and the world blames al-Qaeda whose leadership also believes they did the dastardly deed.

Several years later, Eddie Connell asks Repairman Jack to find his missing sister Weezy, a forensic scientist who anonymously placed her brilliant 9/11 findings on the web. Jack locates Weezy in a hospital. She, and anyone trying to protect her, is in danger. Weezy found evidence of strange suspicious stock trading just prior to the World Trade Center destruction. Additionally, she shows to Jack that someone’s picture was deleted from photos of bin Laden and his top deputies. Soon Jack and the Connell siblings conclude the world is in peril perhaps from the Otherness or the adversary he dubs the One missing from the pictures.

Although fast-paced and filled with an apocalyptic 9/11 conspiracy subplot, the latest Repairman Jack thriller is saved from being grounded by Weezy’s key appearance (see JACK: SECRET HISTORIES). Filled with plenty of action, Jack struggles to keep Weezy safe while she continues her ingenious effort to solve the 9/11 puzzle. As Year Zero Minus One countdown continues, readers will enjoy GROUND ZERO, but mot quite as frightening as the other Minus entries perhaps because of the 9/11 connection in which reality was the chiller.

Harriet Klausner