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ISBN: 9781593155377
Creator of Rambo and co-founder of the International Thriller Writers organization, David Morrell has been called “the father of the modern action novel.” Now this award-winning, New York Times bestselling author delivers THE SHIMMER, a novel of chilling impact.
When police officer Dan Page’s wife disappears, her trail leads to Rostov, a remote Texas town where unexplained phenomena attract hundreds of spectators each night. Not merely curious, these onlookers are compelled to reach this tiny community and gaze at the mysterious Rostov Lights.
But more than the faithful are drawn there. A gunman begins shooting at the lights, screaming “Go back to hell where you came from!” then turns his rifle on the innocent bystanders. As more and more people are drawn to the scene of the massacre, the stage is set for even greater bloodshed.
To save his wife, Page must solve the mystery of the Rostov Lights. In the process, he uncovers a deadly government secret dating back to the First World War. The lights are more dangerous than anyone ever imagined, but even more deadly are those who try to exploit forces beyond their control.
With THE SHIMMER, David Morrell takes readers on a brilliant, terrifying journey. Suspenseful, yet thought-provoking, it is the master at his very best.
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David Morrell is regarded as the father of the modern action novel. As lofty a title as that is, he is much more than that. Well into his fourth decade as an author, Morrell could be resting on his mountain of accolades while occasionally sending a communiqué of some value down from the mountain. Instead he seems to be working harder than ever, with even greater results. One could argue that he is entering a higher stage of his career, with some of his best work having been written during the course of the last several years. If, for example, you bypassed THE SPY WHO CAME FOR CHRISTMAS because you suspected it was a heartwarming seasonal tale with thriller highlights, you need to read it from cover to cover right now. What is most noteworthy about the book is that it demonstrates Morrell’s willingness to take chances, as well as his ability to meet and exceed all expectations.
This brings us to THE SHIMMER, Morrell’s latest effort, as impressive as anything he has ever written and as challenging an endeavor as he has attempted to date. It would be easy to classify it as a work of speculative fiction, and while the book does have some touches of that genre, it would be an oversimplification to do so, one that would not do justice to either the tale or its author. The focal point of the story is a nocturnal phenomenon consisting of a display of lights occurring over the city of Rostov, Texas. Rostov is a creation of Morrell’s imagination, but along with the light display, it is based upon a similar town and phenomenon in the real-world locale of Marfa, Texas.
Three significant elements converge upon Rostov in THE SHIMMER. One is a colonel named Warren Raleigh, the latest member of a family of military men whose lives have been connected with the lights for generations. Another is Brent Loft, who regards the lights, and a disaster that occurs during one of their sightings, as elements to be exploited on his way to prominence as a television anchorman with a national audience, a position that he sees as his inevitable and rightful due. The most interesting element of the book, even beyond the light display that gives the tale its name, is the relationship between Dan and Tori Page. Dan is a pilot with the Santa Fe Police Department; he returns home after a particularly harrowing day to find his wife unexpectedly gone, with only a terse note to him heralding her absence. In due course he discovers that she has gone to Rostov, a town of which he has never heard. Her absence functions as a wake-up call to him concerning their relationship, so he drops everything and journeys to the city to bring her home. What he finds is not what he expects, at least not initially.
Tori has come to Rostov to watch the lights, a phenomenon that first captivated her as a child. When he locates her, she appears to be in a trance; there is more going on here as well, and the manner in which they resolve their problems and breach the quiet distance between them transforms THE SHIMMER into a work that reads like an unlikely but highly readable collaboration between Frank Edwards and John Barth. Morrell is never gratuitously violent, but he does not shirk from it nor does he give short shrift to its aftermath. The result is a tale of redemption and transformation, obtained not without cost but all the dearer for the experience.
It is noteworthy that very few authors would attempt a work of this difficulty, and even fewer would succeed to the extent that Morrell has with THE SHIMMER. Put this one on your must-read list for this year.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.
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From fifteen hundred feet off the ground, the blue pickup truck
looked like a Matchbox toy. Normally it would have blended with traffic,
but on this clear Tuesday afternoon in early June, the pilot
watched the truck race past other vehicles and veer back and forth between
lanes as the driver searched for any open space he could find.
The aircraft, a Cessna 172, had high wings and a single propeller.
Its pilot was a forty-year-old police officer named Dan Page. He knew
that the driver of the pickup was male because he monitored a police
radio through his headphones and was aware that ten minutes earlier
the man had shot and killed another man in a feud between drug
dealers at Fort Marcy Park. A police officer driving by saw the shooting.
When he sped into the park, the assailant fired through the
cruiser’s windshield and killed him. Park workers who saw the murders
all identified the shooter as a thin, twentyish Anglo with a
shaved head and a white T-shirt, the short sleeves of which revealed a
large tattoo on his left arm.
This was Page’s day off. A private pilot, he enjoyed flying his
Cessna from Santa Fe’s small airport and, as he phrased it, “getting
above it all.” But when his police radio transmitted news of the chase,
he headed over the four-mile-wide city to where the truck had last
been seen, hoping to spot it among Santa Fe’s low buildings and provide
directions to his fellow officers in the pursuing police cars. Five
minutes later, he had it in sight. The truck’s frantic, random route
would have been difficult to follow on the ground but was obvious
from the air.
“He’s going east on Peralta,” Page said into the microphone on his
headset. “Now he’s turning right onto Guadalupe, heading downtown.”
“I’m five blocks in front of him,” another officer’s voice answered
quickly. “I can cut him off.”
“Wait. Now he’s veering onto Agua Fria.”
Page stared down helplessly as an oncoming car swerved out of the
truck’s way, lurched onto a sidewalk, and hit an adobe wall, earthen
bricks cascading onto the hood. He imagined the sound of the crash,
the violence somehow gaining in magnitude because of the distance.
“He’s back on Saint Francis Drive,” Page warned.
“If he’s headed toward the interstate, we’ve got the ramps blocked,”
an urgent voice replied.
Again the truck abruptly changed direction.
“He’s turning right onto Cerrillos Road,” Page yelled.
“I’ll intercept him at Cordova!” a different voice blurted.
Peering down toward a crosswalk, Page noticed pedestrians scurrying
to avoid the truck. A car was forced off the road.
“Too late! He’s past Cordova!”
“We’ll set up a roadblock at Saint Michael’s Drive.”
“Better make it Rodeo Road! He’s driving so fast, you won’t have
time at Saint Michael’s!”
Indeed, the speed with which the truck covered distance was astounding.
The other vehicles on Cerrillos Road seemed to be standing
still.
My God, he’s got to be doing over a hundred, Page thought.
Other drivers must have seen the truck speeding toward them in
their rearview mirrors, or maybe the fugitive kept blowing his horn.
For whatever reason, traffic veered out of the way.
“We’ve got the intersection at Cerrillos and Rodeo Road closed!” a
voice shouted.
Immediately the truck swerved onto another side street.
Page finally understood the pattern. “I think he’s got a police radio!”
“What?”
“He changes directions whenever you tell me you’ve got a street
blocked! He must be listening to us! Now he’s turning into the Lowe’s
parking lot!”
Customers leaving the huge hardware store darted to the side as
the truck sped toward the movie theater at the end of the lot. It disappeared
into a parking garage.
Circling, Page watched for a man in a white T-shirt to leave the
garage and try to get away on foot. But in June, a lot of men wore
T-shirts, and from this altitude, it was almost impossible to distinguish
colors on clothing. Moreover, the color might be irrelevant—the driver
could force someone in the garage to give him a different-colored shirt
so he could walk away without attracting attention.
Page kept circling.
A car left the garage.
He watched the tiny figures of pedestrians proceeding toward the
theater’s entrance. He looked for anyone whose pace was hurried.
An SUV left the garage.
He can change vehicles as easily as he can put on another shirt, Page
realized.
A sports car left the garage.
From above, Page kept track of all three vehicles and described them
to the officers on the ground. The first one reached a lane that took it
to the left toward Cerrillos Road. The SUV reached the same lane and
turned in the opposite direction, toward a side street. The sports car
headed back toward the parking lot in front of the hardware store.
Three different directions.
Meanwhile, the pursuing police cars converged on the area. Page
saw their flashing roof lights and imagined the wail of their sirens.
No other vehicles came from the garage. At the hardware store
parking lot, a police cruiser stopped the sports car. Page switched his
view toward the first vehicle that had left the garage. It was stopped at
the entrance to Cerrillos Road, unable to find a break in traffic. In
contrast, the SUV faced no obstacles as it drove leisurely in the opposite
direction, along the lane toward the side street.
Page had a hunch and followed it. He descended a hundred feet,
doing nothing drastic, nothing the FAA would object to, but even so,
the downward motion made his engine grow louder.
The SUV seemed to drive a little faster.
He descended another hundred feet, making his engine sound
even more insistent.
The SUV increased speed.
“He’s below me, in the SUV!” Page yelled into the microphone,
testing his theory by flying another hundred feet lower and trying to
provoke a response.
He got one. The vehicle surged forward and skidded onto the side
street.
“He’s heading toward Airport Road!”
The SUV swung onto the multilane road and zigzagged through
traffic, its speed so reckless that cars swerved to get out of the way. Two
of them crashed against each other. Each time the vehicle abruptly
changed lanes, it rocked a little—not as stable as the truck had been.
Page glanced farther along Airport Road, gaping at a gasoline
truck that emerged from a service station. Oh, my God . . .
When the SUV changed lanes again, the abrupt motion caused it
to lean. Instead of tipping, it managed to jolt back onto all four
wheels. But as the driver tried to find an open space in another lane,
he must have yanked the steering wheel. The vehicle tilted more severely,
balanced on two wheels, fell all the way over, and crashed onto
its side.
Throwing up a shower of sparks, it slid along the road.
No!
The SUV hit the tanker, tore a gash underneath, and burst into
flames as the sparks ignited the gasoline cascading from the fuel
truck’s belly.
A fireball swelled upward. Banking from it, Page felt the shock
wave. It took several moments before he could make his voice work
and radio for an emergency team. Dark smoke drifted past him.
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