The Day After Tomorrow by Allan Folsom
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book was crazy! It was a fun, fast read, but it was crazy. The plot is pretty inane and there’s so much gratuitous violence, it’s not even funny. I’ve never read of so many murders in my life. But it was still enjoyable to read and I think it’s worth a good four stars.
It starts out with Osborne, an American doctor in Europe for a conference. His father was murdered 30 years ago and he witnessed it. It was traumatic and he remembered the killer’s face. Back to the present. He meets a female French doctor and they embark on a whirlwind romance that takes them to England and France. Meanwhile, a grizzled American detective from L.A., McVey, is in London helping to investigate a series of gruesome murders where they’re finding detached heads, as well as a body. The remains are not all English, however. They come from various countries, including France, so he heads to Paris to investigate. At the same time, Osborne sees his father’s killer in a cafe and attacks him, but the man gets away. And so begins a mysterious chase that leads to utter insanity. Think Nazi plot to regain world dominance, a secret organization with people who have infiltrated everywhere and everything, so no one is trustworthy. And everyone is trying to murder everyone else. Eventually, the plot takes you to Germany, where the top people in the country, and the richest, have gathered to hear a mysterious Swiss man who recently survived a stroke, give a rousing speech about who knows what. There are bad guys, of course, and maybe the worst is Von Holden, an Argentinian Nazi who was miraculously in both the Russian special forces and the East German special forces. Stretches believability, but then the whole plot, when unraveled at the end, is so damn silly as to make the book seem insane, or at least the author. Reviewers comment on the final sentence of the book and it is important, yes, and it explains all, but I thought it was somewhat predictable, so I wasn’t really too shocked when I read it. Nonetheless, it was a good mystery/thriller and it was nuts, so I liked it. Not the best I’ve ever read, but definitely recommended for those who enjoy bizarre thrillers and who can stand a little bloodshed.
hankrules2011 