Chain of Events
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
A stunning debut thriller about a code that threatens humanity -- and the only man who can crack it.
William Sandberg, once a well-respected military cryptologist pursuing cutting-edge research, is a ruined man. His career is in shambles, his marriage is over, and he's succumbed to a dark depression.
But William's talents haven't gone unnoticed. A nameless, top-secret organization abducts him and tasks him with a daunting mission: decode a message that will reveal the disastrous prophecies hidden in our DNA before it is too late.
Meanwhile, William's ex-wife Christina is haunted by his absence and suspects there is more to his disappearance than just the reclusive impulse of a depressed man. Driven by her hunch, she sets out to find him and joins an eclectic cast of characters all drawn to a mysterious chateau in the Alps where the secret organization is plotting something-but is it revenge? Or a rescue mission? What is the organization hiding? What does the code have to do with the potent virus suddenly spreading around the world? And can William uncover the truth before it's too late?
A thrilling novel about humanity on the verge of crisis, taking readers from the streets of Berlin and Stockholm to a chateau in the Alps, Chain of Events explodes and then reconfigures the ties that bind us to one another: marriage, politics, and our DNA.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Olsson's debut, a world-in-peril thriller, gets high marks for developing an original concept and building suspense, but he needs to have a keener instinct for when readers have had enough of a good thing. A group of elite scientists and mathematicians have been holed up in a remote European castle for more than 50 years. Led by a British military strategist known only as Connors, they have been trying to crack a complex code discovered in human DNA that appears to prophesy disaster for Earth unrelenting plague, followed by worldwide conflagration. The time is getting close, and the scientists, stymied for decades in their attempt to redirect the code, have resorted to kidnapping other experts, including Swedish cryptologist William Sandberg, in a last-ditch try to save humanity. The second half of the story rambles along without direction, with countless foot chases through the castle, too many sectional cliffhangers, and confusing scientific detail.
