Apocalypse

by Dean Crawford

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

"How many bodies are there?"

Short and sweet, but this first sentence grabbed me. It set the expectations and had me plowing through to learn the answer.

I just finished watching an episode of CNBC's show American Greed: Scams, it was on Rita Crundwell who embezzled 53 million dollars from her home town. How does this relate to Apocalypse? It sounds like an odd analogy but as with the docuprogram Apocalypse was sneaky and, like the town of Dixon wondered how I missed that.

The semi-time travel/futuristic aspect of the novel was a little odd and had to concentrate a little harder in those parts. To make another TV comparison, I was reminded of The Big Bang Theory. There is an episode where Sheldon, Lenard, Howard and Raj go in on a time machine. It sadly does not go anywhere but the boys have very imaginative (yet scientific) fantasies about using it. This compares to my thoughts on the "seeing into the future" paradox as that while it was an intricate part of the story did not move me in leaps and bounds but like Sheldon and Lenard, still found the concept interesting.

The Abells were a little shady in the fact that I wasn't quite sure what to believe, (at least at first) and thought they worked well off each other, like Ethel and Fred Mertz. Charles Purcell was an interesting fellow giving Dean Crawford's novel a little spice with his vigilant innocence and desire to see justice even if from afar. Ethan Warner, was calm, cool and collected in the face of danger and as the lead character held the storyline together. With such a vast plot it could be very easy to stretch the characters thin and have a homemade fix-it holding wires together with chewing gum and string, but Warner is the real deal, the super glue if you will, and a great agent to travel with.

Overall, Apocalypse was a calculated novel and thoroughly held my interest.