Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Blood Revenge-David Thor

Blood Revenge
David Thor
Cosacinco Press, Oct 2009, $23.95
ISBN: 9780982487709
http://www.cosacincopress.com

In 1974 on Xiamen Island Tan and Jan Yi welcome the ruling Communist Party to their home where they plot to remove their opposition to returning China and back to the glory days of the Maoist revolution. When their two children, fourteen year old Ellen and her older brother Ren almost die in their cleansing, they send them to American where they attend the Leyden Academy in Yakima.

Also in 1974, Lieutenant Suan Moon is conducting biological weapon research in Vladivostok, but still grieving the death of his wife and unborn child, he insures the future of his son Doug in America before killing himself and his project. However, he died in vain as his government watched him closely and obtained copies of his research while his son attends the Leyden Academy in Yakima.

In 2004 the patient plotting of the 1970s begin to prove fruitful. Three years later while a hurricane bears down the Gulf Coast, Providence Hospital sexagenarian Dr. James Bali receives a frantic call from the Coast Guard in which they are bringing in survivors from an accident not yet investigated including someone taken from an oil platform. Dr. Bali meets the rescue helicopter only to find a corpse that had been somehow rubberized. He knows what he is looking at though he prayed he never would see this outside of some horror text book. Biological warfare has come to Mobile.

This is a fast-paced tale with a modern day Manchurian Candidate like spin to the plot. The story line starts off in low gear as the players and their background are provided, but once Bali meets the survivor and the vulcanized corpses, Blood Revenge never looks back as the plot accelerates to ultra speed. The race against the terrorist doomsday clock by the lead character and a few other heroes struggling to prevent a horrific calamity make for a super thriller.

Harriet Klausner