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| View Larger Image | Darkness Falls
by Kyle Mills
| | List Price: | $24.95 | | Price: | $16.47 | | You Save: | $8.48 (34%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 255085 | | Studio: | Vanguard Press | | | Binding: | Hardcover | | Number Of Pages: | 301 | | Publication Date: | October 23, 2007 | | Publisher: | Vanguard Press |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Erin Neal has been living a secluded life in the Arizona desert since the death of his girlfriend and he isn’t happy when an oil company executive comes calling. A number of important Saudi wells have stopped producing and Erin is the world’s foremost expert in resolving just these kinds of complications. As far as he’s concerned, though, he’s left that world behind. Not his problem. Homeland Security sees things differently. Erin quickly finds himself stuck in the Saudi desert, studying a new bacteria with a voracious appetite for oil and an uncanny talent for destroying drilling equipment. But worst of all is its ability to spread. It soon becomes clear that if this contagion isn’t stopped, it will infiltrate the world’s petroleum reserves, cutting the industrial world off from the energy that provides the heat, food, and transportation necessary for survival. Erin realizes that there’s something eerily familiar about this bacteria. And that it couldn’t possibly have evolved on its own. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 20 reviews)
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Superb thriller 
Environmentalist Erin Neal seems to have done the impossible; his latest book left him with irate enemies from both extremes of the environmental vs. economy issue. However, how angry becomes apparent when someone kills his former lover eco-terrorist Jenna Kalin; Erin assumes his book was partially the cause so he becomes a hermit wanting nothing to do with the world at lodge.
Mark Beamon heads the Homeland Security Department energy security section. He and his team know first hand of a calamitous conspiracy to use bacteria to destroy the major oilfields; the bio-terrorists have already caused substantial damage in Saudi Arabia. He needs bioengineering help; so turns to the American expert reclusive Erin who had conceptually thought of creating something similar. The world economy is at stake with Mark and a reluctant Erin trying to prevent pandemic biblical destruction.
This action-packed relevant thriller works because Kyle Mills insures the bioweapon employed by the terrorists seems feasible to develop. The story line is fast-paced in spite of an over abundance of subplots (some feeling like cul de sacs) early on used to fully develop Erin and Mark so readers understand where their loyalties lie before they hook up and to insure the bioweapon and its results in Saudi Arabia appear reasonably possible. The tale soon converges into a stop the terrorists' thriller. The key to the return of the former FBI operative (see SPHERE OF INFLUENCE) is the realism that this could happen.
Harriet Klausner
July 10, 2008 | |
what's the fuss all about 
Maybe the fact that I'm paying over $4 gallon for gas influenced my reading of the book. Maybe it was the over the top environments message. Maybe it was the flat characters. I don't know, but the book just rubbed me the wrong way. It felt like having Ralph Nader, Al Gore, PETA and Green Peace all whispering in my ear that the world was coming to end, save the environment for humanity. Trying to hide such a political message in the story was annoying and over the top.
As for the characters, I just didn't get the love story part. I didn't feel any connection to them. As another person noted, why name a man Erin. The male spelling is Aaron and it was confusing through the whole book. I didn't find anything likable or endearing about Jenna.
Overall, it's probably a good beach read, but I wouldn't want to buy it. Check it out from your local library.
July 07, 2008 | |
Riveting and unique in the current international situations
This book is an extraordinary statement about how fragile we are in the balance of international politics. The author presents a timely and frightening warning about over-reliance on the world's oil resources. Miles gives us a scary look at how the West is undermining itself, and how going forward is actually closer to stepping back into a primeval darkness. The quick urgency of the narrative neatly highlights the author's cynical vision of the dark underbelly of the political and mechanistic systems we invent. I found the main characters, Erin and Jenna, to be carefully and realistically constructed, so that I followed every move they made on a very personal level. To me they represent 'everyman', beginning to recognize what they have created, and wondering now how we, as humanity, can undo what we have done.
This is a novel with very current themes in this modern age, great for anyone who is following the real-life international intrigue going on around us. I found it to be a riveting and unique thriller, tersely written and nicely put together, with enough physical and mental/emotional action to keep me up late.
June 24, 2008 | |
It was a'right. Some weak spots 
First, I listened to the audio edition of this novel. Erin Neal (Yes a man) is a environmentalist still mourning the death of his radical environmentalist girlfriend Jenna who died in a boating accident. Erin is contacted by the government when a strange bacteria seems to be infecting Saudi oil (bacteria is his specialty), Erin travels there with a laid-back government agent Mark Beamon and gets into a fight with a local and his deported. (Erin has a violent temper whoopee!) Soon, it appears that more oil wells are being contaminated and it is a race against time to discover the reason.
This novel had an intriguing premise. I particularly like the idea of a set of stories set in a future world where there is no oil or oil byproducts. But I had trouble with the main characters who seemed rather unlikable. Erin (hate the name) and his dopey girlfriend Jenna. I had no sympathy for Jenna and her hand wringing 'I didn't know they would use my creation for evil.' Meh, I thought she was a silly wench. Erin's moping and violence and ability to withstand torture were a tad fantastic. I think I ended up really disliking him by the end, particularly in one scene where he is beating up Mark.
The villains were rather stereotypical, a rich white guy and his German flunkies.
I give it 3 star. It worked for me initially but began to unwind towards the end.
May 19, 2008 | |
Another great story from Kyle Mills
Kyle Mills quickly became one of my favorite writers with Free Fall which came out sometime around 1997. His stories are adventurous and exciting and he's very adept at building characters you feel you know almost immediately. Every story is a page turner.
In Darkness Falls, Mills turns to his "old faithful" leading man, former FBI Agent Mark Beamon. Now heading up security for the Energy Department under Homeland Security, he's confronted with what seems to be an isolated issue with a major oil well in Saudi Arabia. With the reluctant help of scientist\environmentalist Erin Neal, Beamon slowly begins to believe that the incident is not isolated and is most likely an act of terrorism. In a short matter of time, Neal goes from "assiting" to being the main suspect.
The book is fast paced as all Mills' stories are. It's always nice to sit down and read a Beamon story too...catch up on what he's doing these days. I can't help but read these stories and picture Dennis Franz as the elder but wise detective. Hint-hint to Hollywood!
I highly recommend this book. After you're done, I would also strongly suggest picking up his other "Beamon" books...my two favorite being Phoenix Rising or Sphere Of Influence.
April 22, 2008 | |
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