Sunday, July 24, 2011

End of Days-Robert Gleason

End of Days
Robert Gleason
Forge, Aug 30 2011, $24.99
ISBN 9780765329929

Ancestor of a Shaman, media mogul Lydia Lozen Magruder has had visions of the End of Days for years. When she built the Citadel on the southwest desert and dedicated her media empire to warn of the coming end of civilization, everyone even her daughter Kate assumes she is a lunatic.

L.L. becomes concerned that the countdown has begun when Houston reports a problem. Her ace reporter John Stone has been investigating a Russian general who vanished along with numerous nuclear subs, and a terrorist scheme to prove Einstein right that the fourth world war will have soldiers using stone age weapons. Stone like the Russian officer has vanished. L.L. asks Kate to find her former boyfriend John while warning her daughter that the countdown to nuclear Armageddon has started.

This is an exciting over the top but entertaining thriller. Besides L.L. who holds the story line together, the zillion secondary players include lunatics like the aptly named Chaplain and two brutal Mideast princesses as well as heroes like sailor and innocent like the population of Manhattan. It takes one nut with a paranoid Pygmalion Effect belief to cause the beginning of the End of Days. Fans will enjoy this thought provoking tale as readers will compare the Citadel to what led to destruction of the world in Nevil Shute’s On the Beach.

Harriet Klausner

No comments: