A Book Review: Leviathan by David Lynn Golemon (Event Group Thrillers #4)

Here is an exercise. Let your power of imagination roam free, then try to spin an entertaining yarn, about 300 pages in length, by joining the dots (any that you can spot) between 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Count of Monte Cristo. Pretty hard, right? Such a feat, however, presents a small difficulty if you are David Lynn Colemon, the author of Leviathan, which is the 4^th installment in a series of Sci-fi thriller novels called “Event Group Thrillers”.

What is Event Group? From the inventive mind of David Lynn Colemon comes Event Group (or Department 5656), it is a fictitious, secret organization in the US government. With its base sitting in the bowels of Neveda, Event Group recruits the best and the brightest individuals in the country, at its front line stands the most brilliant people from multiple disciplines, such as science, philosophy, archeology and military. Colonel Jack Collins leads this dream team, together they dedicate their lives to uncovering the hidden truth behind the mythical and legendary events around the world, events that changed the human history.

If my description for Event Group interests you, then feel free to continue reading my book review on Leviathan. I don't think Event Group Thrillers is a widely known series, so if you enjoy this type of thrillers then may you discover a hidden gem in your honorable quest at expanding your reading world.

Synopsis:

Ships around the world are disappearing without a trace, and major seaports are sustaining waves after waves of terrible assaults. The attacks froze the global network of marine transport. Meanwhile, the identity of the assailant remains shrouded in mystery. The United Nations, driven to frenzy by the economic repercussions from this new threat, can do little but staring helplessly on as this stealthy enemy suffocates the world at its throat.

Enters Event Group, the secret ace in the hand of the US government. Led by Colonel Jack Collins, Event Group dug into history and unveiled a most astonishing discovery - Jules Verne's novel has come to life, and behind the series of ruthless attacks lies a mad genius whose vengeful wrath, can only be matched by Edmond Dantes himself.

From the deep fathom of the ocean rises a cold vengeance; its name is Leviathan, and it will spare no one on earth. Who can stop the dooming march of this mighty beast?

My thoughts on this book:

Leviathan is my first adventure with Event Group and I find it a pleasant surprise. This thriller novel exhibits a strong inclination to sci-fi, and it tells a very creative story. The greatest strength of this book, in my opinion, is its characterization. More than a handful of thrillers suffer from a problem, where the story features a cookie cutter, stereotypical antagonist who is weak and lacks a convincing motive. Leviathan, on the other hand, thrives on the story's fascinating antagonist. David Lynn Golemon did an excellent job at characterizing the antagonist, who is one of those fascinating characters that pushes the boundary between good and bad. In this book, Golemon explored the antagonist in depth and then presented the other side of the argument. How did Golemon achieve this level of deep characterization? Leviathan began with a prologue 50 pages in length, it established the background and the history of the antagonist. This is a somewhat unusual style for narrating a story, but it is also very effective at drilling an impression for the antagonist, marrow deep, into a reader's mind.

The second virtue for Leviathan is its fast-paced, suspense filled narratives. There is not a single dull moment in this book. The plot is not overly complex, but it still packs a bag of twists that will surprise you. It suffices to say, Levithan is a very entertaining thriller and it is the kind of book that will keep you reading late into the night. Having praised this novel, I do think this book is not without a weakness; it overpopulated the story with too many characters. The overabundance of characters made it difficult to follow the story. Especially in the first 30% of the book. Other than the story's protagonist, Jack Collins, and the antagonist (who I will not name here), it took a while for the side characters to sink into my brain. I think this is because some of the side characters are not distinctive, they are too similar to each other. However, upon reaching the halfway point, I developed a firm grasp of who is who in the story, then I encountered little difficulty to track the plot. From there, the story moved as a rolling boulder down a hill, all the way to the end.

Reading Leviathan was a blast, a very entertaining experience for me. I like the story's originality, and I admire Golemon's wonderful creativity. Yes, this book may not be perfect because it has too many characters. But its fascinating antagonist, combined with a story moving at an unrelenting pace, easily outshine its minor flaw. It is very unfortunate my local library only collects 7 out of 11 novels in this series, and book 1 is missing on its shelf so I will not be able to read the first adventure in this series. Luckily, as with most thriller novels, the books in this series are telling stand alone stories, so reading them out of order will not have a disastrous effect should I continue to the next installment. In the meantime, I highly recommend Leviathan to fans of science fiction and thrillers. Especially to those readers who are fond of books written by authors such as James Rollins, Jules Vernes, and Tom Clancy.

Until the next time, happy reading!