Havoc

by Jack Du Brul

Overview

New Jersey, 1937: A homicidal madman bears a safe holding a terrible secret that is thought lost when fiery fate intervenes. Decades later, the discovery of that secret is about to threaten the world once more....

Mining engineer Philip Mercer is in the war-torn Central African Republic searching for precious metal. There, he meets Cali Stone, a field researcher for the CDC who is investigating why a certain village suffers from one of the highest rates of cancer in the world-a fact that intrigues Mercer. Once back in the states, Mercer's search for answers leads him to a long-lost safe and a cryptic note inside that may reveal a three thousand year-old deception...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451412430
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/04/2007
Series:	Philip Mercer Series , #7
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	4.21(w) x 6.74(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jack Du Brul is a graduate of the Westminster School and George Washington University. Trying to add as much adventure to his life as he does to his novels, Du Brul has climbed Masada at noon, swam in the Arctic Ocean off Point Barrow, explored war-torn Eritrea, camped in Greenland, and was gnawed on by piranhas in the Amazon River. He collects zeppelin memorabilia and when not writing or traveling (25 countries and counting), he can be found in a favorite chair with a book and a brandy. Jack Du Brul lives in Burlington, Vermont.

Editorial Reviews

Thriller fans who don't demand much realism in their reads should enjoy the first hardcover entry in bestseller Du Brul's adventure series featuring geologist and spy Philip Mercer (Vulcan Forge, etc.). The novel opens with an intriguing premise-that the Hindenburg zeppelin blew up in 1937 as the result of sabotage aimed at keeping a crackpot academic's discoveries secret. In the present-day Central African Republic, Mercer hooks up with the de rigueur attractive but brainy female, Cali Stowe, who's a U.S. intelligence agent posing as a medical researcher. As the pair dodge death from violent insurgent armies in predictable action sequences, they exchange light banter-and learn that the African nation is the source of a radioactive element coveted by terrorists that may have been used by Alexander the Great to defeat his foes. Du Brul is the coauthor with Clive Cussler of the Oregon Files novels, Dark Watch and Skeleton Coast. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

In Du Brul's twist on history, the German zeppelin Hindenburg explodes in 1937, the result of sabotage aimed at silencing an academic on board. In the present day, the academic's secret from almost 70 years ago is about to be discovered by Philip Mercer, a geologist looking for a rare metal in Africa. There he meets a woman from the Centers for Disease Control investigating a village with the highest rate of cancer per capita in the world. The two stumble onto a terrifying conspiracy; terrorists will go to great lengths to achieve their goals with this secret. As in the best of Clive Cussler, the past here affects the future of the world, and a reluctant hero must dig deep to succeed. Du Brul (The Medusa Stone) cowrites the "Oregon Files" series with Cussler, and fans of that style of adventure will not be disappointed. Even though this book marks Mercer's seventh appearance, it's not necessary to read the other entries in this series, but patrons will seek them out after reading this twisty page-turner. For larger fiction collections. [The publisher claims this is Du Brul's hardcover solo debut, but his first two novels, Vulcan's Forge and Charon's Landing, were originally published in hardcover by Tor. Ed.] Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The meeting of a gorgeous nuclear emergency tech and a rugged, rich geologist leads to romance and the tomb of Alexander the Great, who appears to have joined the Nuclear Club two thousand years before it was formed. Philip Mercer, a veteran of previous Du Brul adventures (Charon's Landing, 1999, etc.), is the geologist with a broken heart (but a fully functioning truck) who appears on the scene in the midst of revolutionary chaos in the Central African Republic, where someone has shot out the tires on the Land Rover that was supposed to take redheaded Cali Stowe, her Geiger counter and her lusciously ripe lips to a backwater village where everyone dies of birth defects. Mercer is mourning his girlfriend, who died months ago, but he can't help noticing those swarm-of-bees-stung lips, those freckles and that deep-red hair . . . besides, it's common courtesy to offer a lift when revolutionary forces are shooting up the countryside. Wouldn't you know, guerillas show up in the village before Cali can get any blood samples-if, indeed, that's the real reason she was there. About to be shot by firing squad, Cali and Mercer are saved by mysterious, black-clad warriors who wipe out the revolutionaries but fail to kill their cruel, oversized European mercenary-consultant. Poli is a blackguard who will plague the handsome couple once they make it back to Washington and begin a trail of discovery that leads to the Hindenburg disaster and a very nervous passenger running from the Nazis with a safe full of secrets that he drops overboard before the dirigible destructs. Solving various mysteries will take our hero and heroine to the Upper Nile via southern Russia and Atlantic City. This jut-jawed,action-overstuffed adventure gets some not-very-comic relief from Mercer's octogenarian pal Harry, who comes complete with cute basset hound. Lays on the action with a trowel.

Kirkus Reviews

Fans of Phillip Mercer, sometime geologist, sometime soldier of fortune, won't be unhappy with this latest installment in the series. Once again, Mercer is portrayed by J. Charles, who has a clear, resonant voice. This time Mercer is called upon to unearth a seventy-year-old secret that is linked to a current act of terrorism. DuBrul cleverly offers an alternative explanation for the 1937 destruction of the Nazi zeppelin HINDENBURG at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Charles is at his best portraying newsman Herb Morrison, who witnesses the catastrophe and describes it as it happens. Charles is less successful at playing characters with accents. Most sound contrived. A.L.H. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

FEB/MAR 07 - AudioFile