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Norm Goldman

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By Norm Goldman
Published on September 12, 2009
 


Author: David Morrell
ISBN: 978-1-59315-537-7
Publisher: Vanguard Press (A Member of the Perseus Book Group)



Author: David Morrell
ISBN: 978-1-59315-537-7
Publisher: Vanguard Press (A Member of the Perseus Book Group)

Click Here To PurchaseThe Shimmer

The remote town of Rostov, Texas, the backdrop of David Morrell's latest thriller, The Shimmer, doesn't exist. However, Marfa in west Texas is alive and kicking. The reason for my mentioning Marfa is that it is here where thousands of people claim to have witnessed from time-to-time strange and magical lights. However, no one can explain them. And based on his reading of a newspaper article concerning these sightings, Morrell has crafted a thriller of a yarn that focuses on this same phenomenon involving a set of characters who chase after these colored lights that seem to dance, bobb, float, drift, glow and merge. The result is a novel interweaving three different stories that will keep you entertained and at the end scratching your heads asking if these lights actually exist or are they figments of people's imagination?

The first story unfolds when police officer Dan Page of Santa Fe, New Mexico returns home one evening and discovers that his wife Tori has disappeared. However, very soon after, Dan receives a phone call from the police chief of Rostov, a town located a couple of hundred miles southeast of El Paso, Texas, and is informed that they have found his wife. Dan has no idea why his wife is in Rostov and Chief Costigan tells him that he will have to come there as soon as possible without giving him any further explanation. In addition to being a police officer, Dan is also a pilot, and he wastes little time in flying to Rostov in his own Cessna. However, he is warned that there was one flight restriction in the area that involved an array of radio astronomy dishes twenty miles northwest of Rostov. He was informed that the concern was not related to national security but rather, the observatory was off-limits because planes flying over the dishes were liable to cause electrical interference that blocked attempts to collect radio signals from astronomical phenomena such as solar flares and spiral galaxies.

The second tale involves a military secret that was kept by three generations of the same family concerning an abandoned military training airfield that was shut down in 1945. The principal character of this second tale is Col. Warren Raleigh, who is involved in developing lethal weapons that are far more potent that what already exists His story is connected to a heavily guarded area twenty miles to the southeast of Rostov, where there are several observatory dishes pointed in various directions toward the sky. Outside of the area is a barbed wire fence with a sign stating that the property belongs to the U.S. Miltary and was dangerous containing hazardous and unexploded devices.

The third yarn concerns a television reporter, Brent Loft, who would dearly love to win an Emmy and become a famous personality. He will go to any length, even putting his own life and that of his camerawoman on the line, while he sensationalizes the mesmerizing effect the Rostov lights have on the hundreds of people who visit the area.

One of the delights of this novel is the masterful way in which Morrell depicts his characters actions and thoughts, unmasking contrasting takes on the same incidents. His dexterity to reveal these different views creates a world of mirrors, in which the reader asks, is it possible that we see only what we expect to see, and thus we need to learn to see in a new way? Another is the ease at which Morrell can intertwine all three of his stories without losing a beat. Moreover, if you find yourself reading this book as it it were your typical thriller, watch out, there is something much more.

David Morrell is the award-winning author of numerous New York Times bestsellers, including Creepers, Scavenger, and First Blood, the novel in which the character of Rambo was created. He is the co-founder of the International Thriller Writers organization.

Click Here To PurchaseThe Shimmer