The Prometheus Man

October 24, 2016
Tom Reese, the 22-year-old hero of Reardon’s intriguing if flawed first novel, is searching for answers into why his brother, Eric, who was employed by a pharmaceutical company in Paris, was murdered. After stealing the identity of Tom Blake, a CIA officer who’s proficient in Russian and graduated from Georgetown University magna cum laude, and infiltrating a high-level investigation, Reese, a college dropout who “was nobody really,” uncovers information about the mysterious program that Eric was involved in, Project Prometheus. Everyone associated with the top-secret program, Reese discovers, seems to be dying untimely deaths—and he may be the next target. Reardon writes well and keeps the action moving as he explores the unforeseen consequences of Project Prometheus, but Reese lacks credibility. The sheer implausibility of many sequences (he hot-wires a car and then pulls off high-speed maneuvers that would make James Bond envious) risks losing thriller fans who value verisimilitude. Agent: Stacia Decker, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.

A madman is on the loose, and CIA Agent Tom Blake is working against the clock as the bodies pile up. Maxwell Hamilton is an excellent narrator for the dramatic and violent events of this thriller. The details of the mounting crimes are not for the faint of heart--as the bloody opening scene makes clear. Listeners will want to be mindful of young ears while playing this chapter. Hamilton tells the story at a brisk pace in keeping with the intensity of the events. His determined tone plays up the clash between the macho CIA agent and the villain. M.R. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

October 15, 2016
After a CIA agent is murdered, his brother seeks revenge and stumbles onto a plot to create a superhuman killer.Author Reardon delivers a debut thriller that succeeds on almost every count. He works well with several traditional thriller tropes. At the core of his complex plot is a classic doppelganger: the protagonist, Tom Blake, hired on to work with the CIA, is not who he says he is. He's really Tom Reese. Reese stole Blake's identity as a CIA agent as a way to gain information that will lead him to whomever killed his brother. Reese is canny enough to know that it won't be long before the CIA discovers he's an imposter--they're already pressing for a lie detector test. With a day or less before the agency discovers his cover ID, Reese is in a classic race against time. To complicate matters, Reardon draws on myth by making the real Blake superhuman. In Paris, Project Prometheus had been trying to engineer human killing machines--they'd already doubled the weight of a test chimpanzee, giving it skin like "raw hamburger microwaved gray." It appears, as well, that some others will kill to turn the eponymous man into their own killer. All Reese lacks as he sets off to find his brother's killers is a comely companion. Onto the scene Reardon summons Silvana Nast, "one of those people you knew was going to be great-looking even if you only saw them from behind." Reese and Silvana tear off in a Peugeot, one of many high-octane action scenes Reardon executes with skill. Alas, Reardon is less successful at giving his characters texture or his locales color and life. To keep a swift pace on the trail, telling detail seems to have gone by the wayside. The chase is all here, and for some that will be enough.

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November 1, 2016
Tom Reese, a very clever college dropout, has decided he has nothing left to lose. So he steals the identity of a CIA agent and walks into the agency's Paris station to use the CIA's vast information sources to find the men who killed his older brother, Eric. What he finds is evidence of a covert lab where Eric worked that used stem cells to produce super soldiers. But the agency eventually tumbles to the fact that there are two people using the same agency ID, and Reese is on the run, hunted by a gallimaufry of the most dangerous men on earthincluding the only surviving product of the lab, Ian Bogosian, a former U.S. soldier who, thanks to his treatments, is now faster than Usain Bolt, more agile than Spiderman, and stronger than Godzilla. Reardon has packed his debut with action, plot twists, and well-sketched characters. But those who will most enjoy The Prometheus Man will be those who can most easily suspend their incredulity. Recommend this one to readers of John Burdett's The Bangkok Asset (2015), which also features a genetically altered superman.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)