BOOK REVIEWS: The New Bad Thing (Michael Ebner)
SAN FRANCISCO BOOK REVIEW (4 Stars)
A globe-trotting, action-packed thriller that exposes the corruption at the heart of venerable media, charity and business institutions and shows the lengths to which individuals will go to do what they think is right and guard their own interests, Michael Ebner’s The New Bad Thing tackles weighty issues with aplomb while blending real-life situations with almost non-stop danger and intrigue.
The book opens in explosive fashion as American reporter Teagan Penn takes shelter in the Chateau Bleu Hotel in Paris as terrorists storm the building, killing everyone they come across. She manages to phone a contact in the US, a man named Roman, who she asks for help; however, it almost immediately becomes clear that Roman already knows about the terrorist incident and that he may actually have had a hand in it. Heavy hints are dropped that Teagan has been mixing with some danger characters and that she has done something serious to antagonize them.
Teagan’s story then jumps back in time and sees her at work in the offices of Verdict magazine in downtown Seattle. It’s certainly not as dangerous as a terrorist attack, but Teagan is still in the thick of things, effectively blackmailing her boss into returning a prized story assignment to her friend. This early section provides a great introduction to Teagan’s character, resolve, and willingness to go to quite extreme lengths to get what she wants. It also reveals that her tough exterior hides a great deal of pain, though, as Teagan and her husband, Todd, later discuss their difficulty conceiving. In The New Bad Thing, Ebner has crafted a fast-paced thriller with plenty of twists and turns that make it difficult to recognize fact from fiction as the various characters engage in plots and counterplots in an effort to get what they want. It all makes for an exciting and gripping read that offers more than a few shocks.
Erin Britton, San Francisco Book Review
KIRKUS REVIEWS (OUR VERDICT: GET IT)
Teagan Penn is a 37-year-old Seattle journalist with a prominent facial dog-bite scar and a talent for drawing out celebrities in soul-baring interviews. Her own soul is troubled by her and her husband Todd’s inability to conceive a child and by news of nearly daily atrocities committed by KIL, an Islamic terrorist group. When KIL starts kidnapping and enslaving girls in the Middle East, Teagan’s frustrated maternal instincts prod her to launch a personal rescue mission of her own. She strikes a deal with a shadowy crime lord named Roman to raise $12 million, which he is to use to mount a mercenary operation called Project Rebound to rescue the girls. The caper goes awry before it even gets going, and after Teagan goes to Paris to untangle it, her hotel is attacked by KIL commandos bent on slaughtering all the guests. When she gets on the phone with Roman, he implies that he sent the shooters to murder her under cover of a massacre.
Much of the action is well staged and effective. Ebner gives his characters rich backstories and complex motivations that are reminiscent of a John le Carré novel, with Lexington intriguingly emerging as both victim and antagonist. Throughout, the author renders Teagan’s experiences in vivid prose that captures both the intimacy of motherhood (“After feeding her son, his little head would snuggle between her chin and shoulder…she could hear his every little breath and feel his tiny heart beating throughout his whole body”) and the jagged tensions of violence: “Teagan took a deep breath—ignoring the stabbing-like echo of the attacker’s assault rifle—stayed focused, exhaled and pulled the trigger.” In other passages, he evokes a George Smiley–esque mood of painful disillusionment: “ ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs’ a supervisor had told him. But omelettes aren’t made from week old rotting bodies.” Overall, Teagan proves to be an appealing hero with depth and determination—readers will enjoy rooting for her. An entertaining page-turner that mixes punchy shootouts with resonant soul-searching.
– Kirkus Reviews
SEATTLE BOOK REVIEW (4 Stars)
Teagan, a reporter from Seattle, is desperate to have a child, but she and her husband Todd have been unable to conceive. The emotional turmoil has left her distraught and depressed. She soon decides a project to take her mind off her troubles is what she needs. The recent kidnapping of numerous girls on the other side of the world by a notorious terrorist group known as K.I.L. has left her wanting to help in some way.
So, she decides to create a project known as Rebound that will attempt to raise money to rescue the girls. She enlists the help of Roman, a shadowy figure who claims he can help her get all the tactical help to mount a rescue operation. But who is this shadowy figure? And has Teagan walked into something much bigger than a humanitarian rescue project? Only time will tell. The New Bad Thing is a riveting story that I enjoyed. The more I read, the more I liked the story. It seemed to become richer with details and action the further I read. I also loved the fact that it had a lot of twists and turns. The New Bad Thing is a story readers will enjoy if they are looking for intrigue, mystery, and international scenery.
Susan Miller, Seattle Book Review
PORTLAND BOOK REVIEW (4 Stars)
Teagan has no choice but to fight fire with fire. This book was engaging and exciting from the beginning. I really liked how the author took his main character from the office of the magazine she worked at and fast-forwarded the story to Teagan using a Glock. The plot jump made me want to read more and find out how Teagan got into this sticky mess. I felt like I was right there with Teagan. Overall, I enjoyed the story and characters. I would recommend this book to fans of global espionage novels and thrillers. The New Bad Thing will be the next best thing its readers pick up.
Kristi Elizabeth, Portland Book Review
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