Apocalypse by Dean Crawford

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Apocalypse
by Dean Crawford
Published by Touchstone
Publication Date March 18, 2014
Source: Publisher
Genres: Thriller
Goodreads

A former war correspondent, a double murder, and a physicist who can predict the future: the third thriller from internationally bestselling author Dean Crawford is his best yet.

In the notorious Bermuda Triangle, a private jet vanishes without a trace, taking with it scientists working for the world-famous philanthropist Joaquin Abell. Meanwhile, Captain Kyle Sears is called to a murder scene in Miami. A woman and her daughter have both been shot through the head. But within moments of arriving, Sears receives a phone call from the woman’s husband, physicist Charles Purcell.

“I did not kill my wife and child,” he says. “In less than twenty-four hours I will be murdered and I know the man who will kill me. My murderer does not yet know that he will commit the act.” With uncanny accuracy, Purcell goes on to predict the immediate future just as it unfolds around Sears, and leaves clues for a man he’s never met, former war correspondent Ethan Warner.

The hunt is on to find Purcell, and Warner is summoned by the Defense Intelligence Agency to lead the search. But this is no ordinary case, as Warner and his partner, Nicola Lopez, are about to discover. The future has changed its course, and timing is everything. The end is just beginning . . .

Relentlessly fast-paced and action-packed, Apocalypse combines realistic science, suspense, and intrigue to create an ingenious blockbuster thriller.

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 hometown.  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, I 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 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.