The Chemist

November 14, 2016
In this uneven adult romantic thriller from YA bestseller Meyer (the Twilight series), a woman “currently calling herself Chris Taylor,” a former operative for a secret U.S. government agency that killed her mentor, must take extraordinary steps to stay alive. The compelling opening chapters document the extreme precautions Chris employs to avoid leaving traces of her presence, as well as the sophisticated self-defense mechanisms she has devised. When Chris receives an email from Carston, a former agency colleague, she replies that she’ll meet him one week later where they first met, which turns to be an outdoor cafe in Washington, D.C. At their rendezvous, Carston persuades Chris to use her skills as a no-holds-barred inquisitor to prevent a crippling bioterrorism attack on the country. The first step is for Chris to locate Daniel Beach, who has been working with a Mexican drug lord to distribute a super-charged influenza virus. Once Chris finds Daniel, the plot plays out along predictable lines that don’t do justice to the intriguing setup. Underdrawn characterizations don’t help. Agent: Jodi Reamer, Writers House.

November 15, 2016
A professional torturer on the run from her employers falls in with sexy twin brothers.You probably know Meyer as the then-27-year-old Mormon housewife who woke up from a dream about vampires and gave the world Twilight, though in addition to that series she has already published one adult thriller (The Host, 2008). In her latest, she marries the genres of spy versus spy and throbbing romance novel with good results. Meet Juliana, or Alex, or Casey, or Chris--whatever her alias of the moment is, she's an operative with a medical school background who specializes in chemically controlled torture and interrogation. Somewhere along the line, she learned too much about the secrets of her employers, and she now lives in a state of high-tech paranoia, sleeping in a bathtub wearing a gas mask in a secret location booby-trapped at every possible ingress. When her old boss calls her in for one last mission, she's not sure she isn't being double-crossed--but nonetheless proceeds with the kidnapping of Washington, D.C., schoolteacher Daniel Beach, who's purportedly part of a vile plot to release a virus that will wreak global doom. In fact, he is a man whose deep inner goodness is rivaled only by his scorching outer hotness--but our socially awkward virgin heroine won't realize this until after she's taken him to her secret lair, stripped him naked, strapped him to a table, and injected him with compounds that produce pure agony for 10 minutes at a time. The biochemical magic between them is even more powerful than the nasty drugs, and by the time his identical twin brother, a swashbuckling black-ops type, shows up to kill her and rescue him, love has bloomed in the torture chamber. As they begin to see through the layers of cross and double cross, the two agents decide to join forces and go into hiding together, with the brother of course, on a ranch in Texas with a pack of trained superdogs. A tale of skulduggery, bodice rippery, and shoot-'em-up action unfolds, complete with help from a luscious mistress of disguise who could have stepped right out of a James Bond novel. Rated B for badass.

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