The Tower
""...a captivating and exciting read and one that compels you to finish it until the very end…" "
Synopsis:
There is a new threat which is insidious and evil. It is a plague – and one of the first symptoms is the overpowering smell of oranges. Gabriel is a man who has this condition. To avoid passing it on to his beloved and those within the beauteous confines of Eden, he rides out to the city of Ruin in Turkey. There, the Citadel who have enjoyed centuries open their doors to nurse the sick. Many of their number have fallen to this plague and now it is time to fight this invisible enemy together.
At the same time Joe Shepherd and Benjamin Franklin (his real name) from the FBI are investigating the disappearance of two well-known and respected scientists who seek the heavens for answers to the universe. The Hubble telescope has been given a virus of its own and is no longer looking out to space but to the earth itself. At the same time the James Webb Space Telescope has been sabotaged and the chief scientist there has also vanished. Can these instances along with the missing scientists be connected to what is happening in Ruin? Some people feel that man has angered his God by trying to find out the truth to life – but is the threat more human than celestial? It appears that all the dots join together in the city of Ruin where good and evil will have their day.
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Review:
It is always a pleasure when you open a book with some trepidation and end up enjoying it so much that you keep sneaking back to read 'just a few more pages'. I have had a glut of 'conspiracy theory thrillers' recently and have been sorely disappointed. However, with Toyne's finale to his trilogy I was greatly impressed and definitely caught up in the story which was entrancing and kept ticking over at a good pace. It is difficult with this type of novel to find the right pace. Too slow and meandering and the book is boring. Too fast and you feel you're watching a film with people you don't really care about. For me, I felt Toyne gave his characters enough depth for you to care about them without taking his foot off the pedal. I admit to being more involved with the FBI investigation on the Hubble virus rather than what was happening in Ruin, however as the two plotlines converged the story really did reach a higher level. There wasn't too much gore and I really did take to the character of Shepherd and hope that even though this trilogy has been completed that Toyne will find another case for Shepherd. There were allusions to Mayan prophecies of 2012, but this is not simply a novel about people thwarting 'the end of the world…' Toyne has taken the theme of 'Home' as the core of his novel which fits in well with this current time of spiritual development people have been prophesising. However, I could be reading too much between the lines and you certainly don't have to be academic to enjoy this novel. 'The Tower' is a captivating and exciting read and one that compels you to finish it until the very end… of the novel, that is!