The Furies

February 10, 2014
The intriguing premise of this scientific thriller from Alpert (Extinction)—that there’s a genetic basis for legends about witches—doesn’t live up to its potential. On a trip to New York City in search of employment as a social worker, John Rogers picks up a gorgeous woman, Ariel, in a bar. They end up at her Brooklyn hotel room, where she becomes the target of gunmen, whom they barely elude. John soon learns that Ariel belongs to a community that’s isolated itself from society after its members were massacred in 16th- and 17th-century Europe for being “different.” Because of a mutation, all the males in her clan are infertile, and she’s sought out John to procreate. The violence he’s been caught up in is the product of a civil war within Ariel’s species. The formulaic perilous situations, last-minute escapes, and deaths of significant characters won’t be to every taste. Agent: Dan Lazar, Writers House.

April 1, 2014
Alpert, author of several technothrillers, including The Omega Theory (2011), adds an element of fantasy in his new book. The story begins with a guy in a bar being picked up by a beautiful young woman. Before their tryst can be consummated, the woman is nearly killed by armed assassins. John Rogers, the guy who had been hoping simply to get laid, is now on the run with the woman, Ariel, and he's about to learn that she is not at all what he thought she was. In the course of the novel, Alpert asks us to believe that witches are real and that a small mutation in their genetic makeup could change the future of humankind. Butand as those who have read the author's earlier books will know alreadyAlpert has a knack for making unbelievable things seem not only plausible but also completely real. The key here is Rogers, an ordinary man thrown into extraordinary circumstances, who has to learn a new reality on the fly; as he comes to accept, so do we. Alpert's carefully constructed alternate history of witchcraftand sorcery, toois very clever. Good stuff.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)