Tormented by guilt, Mason returns to his home division, but he can’t seem to let go of the tragedy. He remembers seeing something inside the building before it went up in flames, something that convinces him that not only is the virus still out there, it’s merely the first stage of an even more nefarious plan. Obsessed with unraveling the plot, he launches his own investigation and uncovers a shadow organisation on the brink of enacting its genocidal agenda, one carried out by a sinister mass murderer who’s been photographed at the epicenter of seemingly every historical pandemic... without appearing to age. An evil man who attempts to derail Mason’s investigation by murdering his wife.
With the help of his longtime friends - Gunnar Backstrom, a corporate espionage gun-for-hire, and Ramses Donovan, a sin merchant of questionable morality - Mason’s hunt for his wife’s killer leads him from a dark union at the dawn of the twentieth century to a network of Nazi collaborators and a conspiracy against mankind more than a hundred years in the making. Fueled by anger and driven by the promise of vengeance, he must overcome a monster preparing to unleash his virulent wrath upon an unsuspecting world if he’s to have any hope of exposing a deep-state entity that’s rooted in every facet of our society, an entity known only as... The Thirteen.
Great Setup. In this book, Laurence does an excellent job of telling a complete tale that winds up setting up a compelling overall mythos. There are a couple of issues that others may criticize more heavily than I will, but I thought that at minimum these issues didn't really detract from the overall story. In fact, the one most likely to be criticized actually serves as a plausible motivation generally, that Laurence works to great effect in his telling of this tale. Action fans will love the sequences in this book, which can be very inventive.
Overall truly a strong tale, but unfortunately for me the entire series will be compared to another that wrapped up last year and had a very similar premise (and was astounding) - Brett Battles' PROJECT EDEN series. This particular effort does well in differentiating itself in key ways from that effort, and I look forward to seeing how this series progresses. Very much recommended.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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7 September, 2019:
Finished reading
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7 September, 2019:
Reviewed