REVIEW

Review - The Alo Release, Geoffrey Robert

Reviewed By
Karen Chisholm

There are a lot of thrillers these days using environmental issues as the potential threat to the world. It makes a lot of sense that screwing with the balance of nature has some interesting potential when it comes to the villain of the piece as it could be anybody, and the motive is nearly always a power / money grab which is extremely believable.

THE ALO RELEASE tackles the question of genetically modified seeds. Combining as it does technology that is difficult to understand, high stakes corruption and media manipulation, with people behaving very badly, it's the sort of scenario designed to raise the hair on the back of your neck instantly.

Characterisations on both the good and the bad side in this novel are pretty good - the likelihood of an every day small group being the only people able to circumvent disaster is believable, and the bad guys nicely menacing without resorting to over the top antics. Taking the action to New Zealand (the author's home country) happens seamlessly and allows the author to intertwine some nice messaging about that country, to say nothing of a bit of a travelogue along the way.

The only downside is possibly that it does get a little too "here we go again" at points. Once everyone arrives in New Zealand there is a feeling of "new chapter" / "new challenge" that the good group must overcome which has a sense of repetition or expectedness to it that jars a little. A little too processional, it came across as a spot of over-egging in what is otherwise a darn good mix of character and action, place and time which works in an unexpected setting for a big world-wide threat set-up.

It's great to see something as topical as genetic modification of food crops set in somewhere that's not normally known as a big threat / big risk location. Cleverly done, THE ALO RELEASE is a thriller with a message at it's heart, and well worth a read regardless of where you are in the world.

BOOK DETAILS
BOOK INFORMATION
ISBN
B01097AZLC
Year of Publication
BLURB

The Alo Release is a thriller exposing the potential for public opinion to be manipulated during an international crisis.

Nine days before the global release of a genetically modified seed coating set to make starvation history, the IT advisor for an environmental group receives a cryptic email from an old friend working for the seed corporation.

The email triggers a frantic manhunt from the glass towers of Los Angeles to the towering rainforests of New Zealand as the corporation’s security chief tries to track down and silence the English IT advisor and his colleagues – an American biologist and New Zealand eco-warrior.

As the clock ticks down to the much-anticipated and highly stage-managed release of the coated seeds, the trio are pitched against ruthless corporate thugs, law enforcement agencies, politicians, journalists and bloggers – and the overwhelming weight of world opinion – as they race to unravel the truth behind the email. 

Review Review - The Alo Release, Geoffrey Robert
Karen Chisholm
Friday, August 19, 2016
Blog #amreading The Alo Release, Geoffrey Robert
Karen Chisholm
Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Add new comment

This is a book review site, with no relationship whatsoever with any of the authors mentioned here.

We do not provide a method for you to contact authors for any reason and comments of this nature are automatically deleted.

This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.