Ground Zero

On September 11, 2001, a man drifts in a boat off lower Manhattan as the towers burn. He removes a small box from his pocket and presses a button. As he waits for the south tower to collapse, he thinks: The vast majority will blame the collapse on the crazy Arabs who hijacked the planes and the Islamic extremists who funded themthe obvious choice. A few will notice inconsistencies and point fingers elsewhere, blaming the government or Big Oil or some other powerful but faceless entity. No oneabsolutely no onewill guess the truth behind the who and why of this day. Years later, someone does. Repairman Jacks childhood friend, Weezy Connell (the genius girl from the Tor Teen novel, Jack: Secret Histories ), has started fitting together the pieces of the puzzle and anonymously posting her conclusions on the Web. But she cant stay anonymous forever. Someone is after her. Jack becomes involved in her troubles and in the paranoid mazes of the 9/11 Truth Movement, where conspiracy theories point in every direction. Theyre all wrong. The truth is stranger, darker, and more evil than anyone can imagine. It involves the cosmic shadow war into which Jack has been drafted. And if the plot behind it--millennia in the planning--succeeds, it will forever change life on this Earth. From Publishers Weekly Wilson's less than satisfying 13th Repairman Jack novel (after By the Sword ) blends 9/11 conspiracy theories with a threat to all life on Earth from otherworldly beings. In the author's alternative history, a shadowy figure floating in a boat in New York harbor causes the collapse of the Twin Towers independently of the suicidal al-Qaeda hijackers by detonating explosives in both buildings. Several years later, Eddie Connell seeks out Repairman Jack, heir to the role of point man in the war against the Otherness. Eddie needs Jack's help in finding his forensic scientist sister, Weezy, whom they trace to a New York City hospital ward. Because Weezy had uncovered suspicious stock trading in advance of the World Trade Center attack as well as the editing out of a man from photos of bin Laden and his top deputies, her life is in peril. The apocalyptic plot and frenetic action fail to add up to a chilling read. (Sept.) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review Serves up the occult thrills fans of Wilsons series have come to expect and tantalizes with the promise of more surprises to come. -- Publishers Weekly on *By the Sword A canny mix of sci-fi paranoia and criminal mayhem Bloodline starts fast, keeps the accelerator down, and defies you to stop reading. -- Entertainment Weekly* ϡ쯦랠