Shadow Zone

May 31, 2010
This disappointing sequel to the Johansens' Silent Thunder (2008) centers on the ancient city of Marinth, submerged in a massive tsunami 4,000 years ago and lying a quarter mile beneath the Atlantic Ocean. The secret that doomed Marinth's civilization to decline before the killer wave is still present and could in the wrong hands be a threat to hundreds of millions of people. As malevolent armsmerchant Vincent Gadiare and his femme-fatale lover, Anna Devareau, maneuver to get their hands on Marinth's secret, Hannah Bryson, world-class submarine designer, gathers her own legion of experts, including her love interest, enigmatic assassin Nicholas Kirov. Entertaining action scenes compensate in part for two-dimensional characters and trite romances. Informed readers may have trouble with the book's lack of verisimilitude. Submarines behave suspiciously similar to aircraft, and photosynthetic plants thrive in the water well below the photic zone.

June 15, 2010

An undersea exploration reveals the mysteries of a lost Atlantis-type land and a possible superweapon in this second Hannah Bryson sub-centered thriller.

The land of Marinth is an irresistible lure to brilliant explorer/inventor Bryson. Even as she mourns her brother and the mysterious Russian she met in her first outing, she thrills to uncover the beautiful hieroglyphs that tell of a high culture and will perhaps explain why it declined. But even as she struggles to uncover the final clues to the island nation's demise, the gorgeous scientist is beset by strange forces. For one thing, the dolphins on the site do not seem to want her there, turning from friendly, even life-saving allies, into a powerful aggressive force. And her prime source of funding, a sleazy money man named Ebersole, is looking to cut the mission short. Even when she, and her buddy Melis, succeed in rescuing a crucial piece of evidence, strange forces turn against them: The artifact, a quartz-inlaid trellis, is stolen en route to her study center. To Hannah, this makes no sense. Not only is the trellis valuable only from a scientific standpoint, it will be easily viewable by everyone. But people are dying, and clues suggest a Russian connection. So Hannah sets out to find Kirov, the mysterious and sexy sub commander she flirted with in her first adventure. Before long, both American intelligence and international weapons dealers are involved with what could be the most potent bio-terror weapon ever—or a scientific breakthrough. The mother-son writing team (Silent Thunder, 2008, etc.) don't work very hard at building believable characters. Kirov, for example, is simply "[s]exy as hell...Sort of Sean Connery meets Harrison Ford." But they know how to move a plot forward, with a short and snappy prose style that won't challenge anyone's vocabulary.

Light, sexy thriller peppered with enough science and mysticism to make any beach seem a little more exotic.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 15, 2010
A lost underwater civilization, deadly algae, and hordes of attack dolphins roil the seas and threaten a fragile peace in the latest international thriller from the Johansens, a tale that reunites characters from their best-selling Silent Thunder (2009). As Hannah Bryson concludes her research at the deep-sea archaeological site of the doomed colony of Marinth, scientists are on the brink of discovering what caused Marinths downfall. The answer may lie in the panels of an intricate trellis that Hannah manages to bring to the surface, only to have it fall into the hands of Gadaire, a ruthless sociopath who wants to use it to bring about an environmental Armageddon. Only one person has the cunning and desire to stop Gadaire: Kirov, the Russian agent who came to Hannahs aid once before. While Hannah struggles with the spy-who-loved-me aspects of working closely with the inscrutable Kirov, her impetuous 12-year-old nephew, Ronnie, insinuates himself into the middle of the investigation. In this adrenalin-accelerating tale of a high-stakes, high-seas conspiracy, the Johansens adeptly juggle multiple points of intrigue, smoothly balancing the prerequisite whirlwind pacing with plausible, even restrained, personal relationships. And Hannah emerges as a prepossessing, determined heroine who is more than capable of sustaining this absorbing series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

June 15, 2010

An undersea exploration reveals the mysteries of a lost Atlantis-type land and a possible superweapon in this second Hannah Bryson sub-centered thriller.

The land of Marinth is an irresistible lure to brilliant explorer/inventor Bryson. Even as she mourns her brother and the mysterious Russian she met in her first outing, she thrills to uncover the beautiful hieroglyphs that tell of a high culture and will perhaps explain why it declined. But even as she struggles to uncover the final clues to the island nation's demise, the gorgeous scientist is beset by strange forces. For one thing, the dolphins on the site do not seem to want her there, turning from friendly, even life-saving allies, into a powerful aggressive force. And her prime source of funding, a sleazy money man named Ebersole, is looking to cut the mission short. Even when she, and her buddy Melis, succeed in rescuing a crucial piece of evidence, strange forces turn against them: The artifact, a quartz-inlaid trellis, is stolen en route to her study center. To Hannah, this makes no sense. Not only is the trellis valuable only from a scientific standpoint, it will be easily viewable by everyone. But people are dying, and clues suggest a Russian connection. So Hannah sets out to find Kirov, the mysterious and sexy sub commander she flirted with in her first adventure. Before long, both American intelligence and international weapons dealers are involved with what could be the most potent bio-terror weapon ever--or a scientific breakthrough. The mother-son writing team (Silent Thunder, 2008, etc.) don't work very hard at building believable characters. Kirov, for example, is simply "[s]exy as hell...Sort of Sean Connery meets Harrison Ford." But they know how to move a plot forward, with a short and snappy prose style that won't challenge anyone's vocabulary.

Light, sexy thriller peppered with enough science and mysticism to make any beach seem a little more exotic.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)