January 1, 2022
A rookie FBI agent battles a group of suicide bombers who take a distinctly long view of their struggle. Vera Taggart isn't a typical recruit to the Bureau. Acting Chicago Special Agent in Charge Gina Butler had approached her at a display of the paintings she'd created in fulfillment of her degree program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago because she was convinced that Tag's eyes saw deep enough to help track the Sons of Elijah, a cabal of bombers convinced that they're reincarnations of earlier generations of oppressed and conquered people from civilizations as remote as medieval France, China, and Imperial Rome. Completing her training as she recovers from the death of her roommate at the hands of an unusually adventurous lover, Tag prevents troubled Caleb Miller from throwing himself off a bridge into the Chicago River. He runs away and sets off a bomb in Chinatown. Looking for answers about Caleb's behavior, Tag meets with his psychiatrist, Dr. Seth Jacobson, a noted expert on past life regression therapy. It turns out that Jacobson has used hypnosis to awaken remarkably detailed memories of earlier lives in both Caleb and corporate accountant Gerald Cutter, another Son of Elijah, who vanished after killing his wife in a reversal of their usual BDSM roles. Determined to find out more, Tag persuades Jacobson to hypnotize her, unleashing some shocking memories of her own past lives. The news that the particle accelerator at Fermilab is Caleb's likely target brings Tag together with Fermilab director Dr. Alex Torres, a researcher hunting for the Big C Particle, the seat of human consciousness. Given the stakes, which of these expert authorities can she really trust? A wildly ambitious thriller that reaches for the skies in ways some readers will like a lot better than others.
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January 24, 2022
Vera Taggart, the heroine of this tense thriller from Miksa (13 Days to Die), shows enough promise as an FBI special agent trainee to get assigned to an almost 30-year-old cold case involving the Sons of Elijah, suicide bombers who believe they have been reincarnated multiple times over the centuries. When a bomb goes off in a Chicago restaurant, it appears the Sons of Elijah are back in business. Vera tracks down psychiatrist Seth Jacobson, one of whose patients, Sophie Whitestone, was once a member of the group. Vera undergoes hypnosis with Jacobson and discovers that she can possibly remember a past life in 13th-century France and that Sophie had a similar past life experience. Vera and her partner, special agent Joe Michelson, wind up in a race against time as the next potential target of the Sons of Elijah is a Department of Energy research lab, which, if bombed, could result in the loss of millions of lives. Chillingly realistic depictions of past-life memories help ground the over-the-top action. Readers will be eager to see what Miksa comes up with next. Agent: Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein, McIntosh & Otis.