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Going Dark: A Thorn Novel
Author:
Hall, James W.
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Series:
Thorn Mysteries, #12
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Class:
Fiction
Age: Adult
Language: English
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LC: PS3558.A
Print Run: 40000
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ISBN-13: 9781250005007
LCCN: 2013024718
Imprint: Minotaur Books
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
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Pub Date: 12/03/2013
Availability: Out of Print Confirmed
List: $25.99
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Hardcover
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Physical Description:
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294 pages ; 25 cm
H 9.62",
W 6.48",
D 1.06",
1.08 lbs.
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LC Series:
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[Thorn P.I. ;
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Brodart Sources:
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Brodart's Insight Catalog: Adult
Brodart's TOP Adult Titles
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Bibliographies:
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Fiction Core Collection, 18th ed.
Fiction Core Collection, 19th ed.
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Awards:
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Publishers Weekly Starred Reviews
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Starred Reviews:
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Publishers Weekly
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TIPS Subjects:
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Mystery/Detective Fiction
Suspense/Thriller
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BISAC Subjects: |
FICTION / Thrillers / Crime
FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Private Investigators
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LC Subjects:
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Environmental disasters, Fiction
FICTION / Thrillers
Fathers and sons, Fiction
Florida Keys (Fla.), Fiction
Miami (Fla.), Fiction
Nuclear power plants, Florida, Fiction
Political fiction
Radicals, Fiction
Suspense fiction
Terrorists, Fiction
Thorn (Fictitious character), Fiction
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SEARS Subjects: |
Adventure fiction
Father-son relationship, Fiction
Miami (Fla.), Fiction
Terrorists, Fiction
Thorn (Fictional character), Fiction
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Reading Programs: |
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| Annotations |
| Brodart's TOP Adult Titles | 08/01/2013 |
| They'll destroy whoever it takes to save the planet. Thorn's son, Flynn Moss, finds himself in over his head when he joins the Earth Liberation Front, or ELF, an extremist organization that's looking to non-violently shut down a nuclear power plant. When Thorn discovers that some group members plan to trigger a Chernobyl-like event, Thorn faces an impossible choice. He must save his recently discovered son…or stop the deadly attack. Thorn Mysteries series, 304pp., 40K, Auth res: Coral Gables, FL; Boone, NC |
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| Starred Reviews: |
| Publishers Weekly | 10/07/2013 |
| Moral ambiguity seasons the violent action in Edgar-winner Hall's outstanding 13th thriller featuring laconic loner Thorn (after 2011's Dead Last). Thorn, who lives in the undeveloped backwoods of Key Largo and loathes the kind of hyperdevelopment that's ruining Florida, is roused from his isolation to extricate his grown son, Flynn Moss, whose existence he only recently became aware of, from the Earth Liberation Front, a group of ecological terrorists who are planning to shut down a nearby atomic power plant. Thorn actually is sympathetic with ELF's goals--but he doesn't trust them. Meanwhile, FBI agent Frank Sheffield begins uncovering a plot to create a nuclear disaster that could annihilate Miami, while a beautiful female Homeland Security agent and a cocksure psycho who likes to play with electricity are working their own schemes. Hall shifts among the skillfully drawn characters, each uncertain of which ends justify extreme means, as the action races toward a literally explosive climax at the nuclear plant. The result is both thoughtful and white-knuckle tense. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management. (Dec.). 320p. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2013. |
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| Journal Reviews |
| BookPage | 12/01/2013 |
| James W. Hall's longtime protagonist, Thorn, grows more crotchety with each passing adventure. At this juncture of his life in Going Dark, he wants nothing more than to live off the grid, tying fancy and expensive fishing flies for sport fishermen. It is not to be, however, as Thorn is drawn into an eco-terrorist plot involving two people he cares about strongly: a young woman he befriended back when she was a troubled teenager, and his newly discovered son, the result of a fleeting liaison 20-some years back. It quickly becomes evident that the eco-warriors are operating on wildly different agendas: One faction wants only to demonstrate how woefully inadequate security measures are at a South Florida nuclear facility; the other is perfectly amenable to blowing the place sky-high, a disaster to outstrip both Chernobyl and Fukushima. It will be down to Thorn to put a monkey wrench into their plans and to save his son--no easy feat with his hands cuffed behind his back and a bullet in his thigh. Going Dark has cinematic action all the way through and a couple of fine surprises saved for the final few pages. Nicely done, indeed. 304pg. BOOKPAGE, c2013. |
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| Booklist | 11/01/2013 |
| Thorn is a hermetic, fly-tying loner whose attempts to carve a separate peace for himself on Key Largo are only intermittently successful. Inevitably, he is drawn into somebody else's fight, or, in a kind of reverse serendipity, simply walks into a mess that needs fixing. And when Thorn gets to fixing something, he doesn't stop until the job's done. Ah, but collateral damage, there's the rub. Too often Thorn's knight-errantry puts those he loves in danger. This time it's a little different. The problem is Thorn's newly discovered son (Dead Last, 2011), who has joined forces with a band of ecoterrorists who have designs on Florida's largest nuclear-power plant. (The plan is supposed to be nonviolent, but a cell within the cell has other ideas.) Thorn's only hope of extricating his son is to join up with the terrorists, which raises the bar on possible collateral damage to a new high. Hall is one of those rare thriller writers who can build character as he ratchets tension, who can do no-holds-barred action scenes with panache and, in the midst of bedlam, never lose sight of nuance. All those skills are on display here, as Hall assembles a full-bodied supporting cast whose stories hold our interest as much as Thorn's attempt to save his son without helping to bring about a South Florida version of Chernobyl. A fine thriller on every level. Ott, Bill. 320p. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2013. |
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| Kirkus Reviews | 12/01/2013 |
| In Hall's 13th Thorn novel, the go-it-alone Key Largo PI undergoes a crash course in parenthood when he discovers the grown son he barely knows belongs to an environmental activist group with terrorism on its agenda. In targeting the Turkey Point nuclear power plant near the Florida Keys, the Earth Liberation Front originally had planned on a nonviolent action. But extremists in the group now have a spectacular demolition in mind, having acquired a superpowerful explosive. Taken prisoner by ELF on the remote island where they're preparing the attack, Thorn is unable to talk his son, Flynn, into escaping with him. But to be around the boy in order to protect him, he convinces ELF that he supports their efforts. It helps that one of the group's leaders is a woman for whom Thorn was a surrogate father when she was a troubled teen. Meanwhile, having been alerted to ELF's presence by the logo they left inside the plant's supposedly impenetrable security system, authorities, including FBI man Frank Sheffield, plan a "force-by-force" exercise in which agents take on the plant's security forces with simulated weaponry. In the end, real shots are fired, Thorn's sidekick, Sugarman, gets more of the action than he bargained for, and betrayals are revealed--the great sex Frank has with a psychologically scarred Homeland Security agent from his past proves to be skin-deep. As ever, Hall is in colorful command of his South Florida setting, occasionally editorializing on the harm developers are doing to it. Compared to other mystery writers, he plays things refreshingly low key, but he's always in control, thriving on the setup as much as the payoff. The plot of Going Dark doesn't have the zip of some of Hall's other Thorn books, but with its nicely observed characters and lively dialogue--and terrific sex scenes--it keeps readers turning the pages. 304pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2013. |
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| Library Journal | 11/01/2013 |
| Thorn (Red Sky at Night) has returned to his life of isolation in Key Largo, FL, when he discovers Flynn, the 25-year-old son he didn't know he had. Trying to help Flynn gets Thorn shanghaied into a group of ecorevolutionaries who are targeting a nearby nuclear power plant. Flynn is idealistic, but some of the other group members are killers. Their selfish agendas are mirrored by a beautiful Homeland Security agent who sees an opportunity for advancement. Thorn must try to thwart the plot from inside even as FBI agent Frank Sheffield tries to cut through bureaucracy to avert a nuclear disaster. VERDICT Like fellow Floridian Carl Hiassen, Hall displays a love of his home state's landscape with criticism of the greed that threatens it, plus a fondness for unpredictable characters. Like an Arthurian knight, his protagonist ventures out of his small world just long enough to put things right in a larger one. Luckily for readers, there will be no shortage of opportunities requiring Thorn's next appearance. [See Prepub Alert, 6/10/13.]. Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale. 320p. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2013. |
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| Library Journal Prepub Alert | 06/10/2013 |
| Florida private investigator Daniel Thorn is worried when he learns that his recently discovered son, Flynn Moss, has innocently become involved with Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a radical environmental group responsible for arson and considered a top terrorist threat by the FBI. When Flynn learns that insider ELF members are planning to turn the organization's peaceful takeover of a nuclear plant into a Fukushima-style radioactive catastrophe (really?), his father pitches in to save the situation-and his son. Hall's Edgar and Shamus statues guarantee readership. 320p. LJ Prepub Alert Online Review. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2013. |
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9781250005007,dl.it[0].title
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