If
you happen to transverse the portion of Interstate 65 between
Nashville, Tennessee and Louisville, Kentucky, you will be
bombarded with signage advising you of the presence of Mammoth
Cave. While all sorts of cottage businesses have grown up around
it, with the attendant billboards (a particular favorite: a sign
high atop a mountain, which proudly proclaims, "Tattoos while you
wait"), the star of the show is the cave complex, arguably the
largest in the world. If the turnstile numbers there ever drop, the
entrepreneurs (probably the US Park Service) would be well advised
to seek out Mark T. Sullivan and issue him a blank check to compose
a commercial to bring back the hordes. His latest novel, LABYRINTH,
demonstrates not only a love for caverns and all things
subterranean, but also an uncanny ability to make the reader love
them as well.

Those afflicted with claustrophobia will be gripping LABYRINTH so
tightly during certain passages that they'll make new indentations
in the binding. Stories involving closed in, dark places tend to do
that. Sullivan, however, ratchets up the suspense wheel a notch or
10 by putting this tale of the recovery of a mysterious moon rock
on a breathtaking, three-track tier. One track carries Tom Burke
and his 14-year-old daughter Cricket who, amid great fanfare, are
set to explore Labyrinth Cave at the behest of NASA as a prelude to
the reinstitution of exploration of the Moon. The Moon's surface
and the interior of Labyrinth Cave are remarkably similar. The
Expedition, however, goes horribly awry when the Burkes are
kidnapped by Robert Gregor, a deranged criminal who secreted a
mysterious but powerful moon rock into the cave system a few years
previously and is willing to do anything to get it back. The only
hope for the Burkes is Tom's wife Whitney, who knows the cave
system almost as well as her husband.

Whitney, a renowned cave researcher in her own right, has abandoned
her profession following a horrific caving accident but is forced
to return to it in order to save her husband and daughter. Her
battle against her own fears and the unforgiving nature of the cave
is the second track of Sullivan's storyline. The third deals with
two scientists, Dr. Jeffrey Swain and his hapless but brilliant
nephew, Chester Norton, as they attempt to locate both of the
expedition parties and, of equal importance, the moon rock, which
may be the most important source of renewable energy ever
discovered. Sullivan, who continues to hone his already
considerable talent in quantum leaps and bounds, keeps things
moving by cutting back and forth among his three storylines at
opportune times, keeping the reader guessing, enthralled, and most
importantly, reading. One simply cannot ask for more than
that.

Even if the closest thing to a cave you've ever personally
encountered is your teenager's room, there is plenty in LABYRINTH
to hold your interest. The setting, the world beneath our world, is
one that Sullivan, convincingly and irrefutably, makes his own.
After reading LABYRINTH it will be hard to take a step without
thinking about what may be going on beneath you at any given
point.