About the Book
He may have prevented the world from falling into ruin, but Alexandre Lamarque knows his work is not done yet.
There’s still a controlling intelligence out there, pulling together the strands of a new and even more destructive conspiracy.
Battling with personal tragedy on one hand, and the intrusion of new-found celebrity on the other, Alex and his allies must reunite for the fight of their lives.
From the streets of Paris, the lithium mines of southern Mali, and the mighty Aswan Dam, they come up against forces whose intentions are as devious as they are malign. Time is against them, and there’s more at stake than ever.
Format: eARC (365 pages) Publisher: Moonflower Books
Publication date: 25th April 2024 Genre: Thriller
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My Review
The Coming Storm is the sequel to the bestselling The Coming Darkness. Set in 2037 in a world fundamentally affected by climate change, it sees the return of intelligence agent, Alexandre Lamarque. The opening chapters provide a brief introduction to the main characters, including Mariam Jordane, the woman Alex is in love with, and his friend and colleague, Amaury Barry, plus a brief recap on what happened in the first book. Even I who read the first book was grateful for this. Although The Coming Storm could be read as a standalone, I would recommend reading The Coming Darkness first. Apart from anything else, it’s a terrific book.
Whereas in the first book the target of the fanatical cult known as The Coming Darkness was the technological interconnectedness so vital to the world’s functioning, this time it’s the globe’s energy sources.
As in the first book, there’s some great world building. People have access to high tech personal devices and autonomous transport but there is also constant surveillence and state imposed curfews. Society has become highly stratified. Money can buy you effective air conditioning but it can’t protect you from the global effects of climate change – rising sea levels, cities obliterated by flooding – or incurable viruses.
‘Alex thought about thirst and drought, the wars being waged over natural resources, surreptitiously or overtly, in several dozen countries of the globe. He thought about hunger and transgenic disease, about the growing populations of Blanks, the non-persons living outside full citizenship. He thought about over-population and under-population – too many people in total, too few young people to service the swelling number of the aged.’
The short chapters keep the pace and the tension high, with storylines featuring different characters often running in parallel. Every good conspiracy thriller needs an enigmatic, unnamed character directing events from afar, and The Coming Storm doesn’t disappoint in this respect.
Amongst Alex’s gifts are what he describes as ‘a kind of hyperawareness’ and an ability to see patterns and make connections between seemingly random events. When he, Mariam and Amaury find themselves in different parts of the world – Mariam because of a personal tragedy and Amaury because of an official posting – he has a sense of foreboding. So does Mariam. ‘What if we die, each of us, so far apart?’ It turns out they’re right to be fearful. They all find themselves in danger zones, surrounded by those whose fanaticism means they have no fear of death, in fact often positively welcome it.
It has to be said the author is pretty ruthless about disposing of characters, sometimes in quite bizarre ways, and leaving others, having defied the odds, in precarious situations. Setting things up for the next book? I hope so.
The Coming Storm is a compelling thriller set in a scarily possible future in which the action comes thick and fast.
I received a digital review copy courtesy of Moonflower Books.
In three words: Gripping, fast-paced, imaginative
Try something similar: A Winter Grave by Peter May
About the Author
Greg is a director, writing and writing teacher. He has lived and worked as a translator in Paris, New York, Los Angeles and Madrid. He now lives in Sussex with his wife, the novelist Kate Mosse.
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