The Sand Men

February 15, 2016
Fowler (Nyctophobia) tackles corporate greed and conspicuous consumption in this suspenseful, unusual story set in and around a luxury Dubai resort. Lea Brook, teen daughter Cara, and husband Roy trade their lives in London for the sterile, landscaped gated community Dream Ranches. It houses top-tier employees of Dream World, which is only months away from opening its opulent doors. At first, the new surroundings are exciting, but Roy works around the clock, Cara is withdrawing, and Lea isn't content to be a good little housewife. When Lea finds out that daughters of Dream World employees have gone missing, and their fathers are killed in workplace "accidents," she starts to dig; but Dubai is a man's world, and no one wants to hear speculation from a "bored" housewife. People suspicious of Dream World start to die, and Lea fears that their delicate, carefully constructed world will soon fall apart. Lea's determination to find out the truth about the missing girls in the face of some very powerful men makes for a harrowing read, and palpable tension builds steadily throughout, all the way to the oddly hopeful, surprising conclusion.

September 15, 2015
Dream World is supposed to be a superfabulous resort for gazillionaires in Dubai, with rooms going for as much as $35,000 a night. But there are problems, and London engineer Roy Brook is offered a fortune to help solve them. He moves his family to this computerized, air-conditioned Xanadu in the desert, and his wife, Lea, the novel's central character, does her best to function in the chilly atmosphere where everything is robotic. Even the people. She meets cranks who whisper that the place is not what it seems. It's not just greed, they say; there's evil at the core. We recognize a situation familiar from Grisham's The Firm (1991) to the Jurassic Park movies, and we aren't surprised when these doubters die mysteriously, and when Lea begins an inquiry of her own. Confrontations, treachery, and chases follow, all of which Fowler skillfully records, though sometimes the buildup goes on so long some of the tension leaks away. The evil, when it's exposed, will either seem stunning or elicit an Aw, c'mon. Still, for the most part, Fowler delivers a fresh twist to a familiar theme.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)