Review by Gargoylegarden -- Waterworks by Jack Winnick

[Mary Lou Mills]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Waterworks" by Jack Winnick.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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Waterworks: Lara and Uri Book 5 is a thriller by Jack Winnick. Eddie lands an easy job at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. A fish tank that is used just like the canary in a coal mine, is in place to warn of danger. Eddie goes to test the water and notices that the fish are all dead. They were fine a half-hour ago. It is strange that they all should die in such a short period of time. When he looked at the holding tank, there were dead birds everywhere. News gets out in time to warn most residents to drink only bottled water. Although lethal when ingested, the threat becomes harmless within days. Four weeks earlier in Tehran, anti-Semitic terrorists gathered to learn about the lethal power of polonium, a byproduct of nuclear reactors. They are excited about the possibility of killing millions of people. The plan is to throw packets of the polonium into the Los Angeles water supply. Lara and Uri are on vacation in Los Angeles when the water is polluted. The FBI called them in and requested their services to locate the source of the site of the reactor that is producing the polonium. Once in Tehran, Uri finds work as a computer programmer and Lara finds work as a cryptographer. They remain in separate locations as agents amidst the terrorists and double agents. They are each alone not knowing who they can trust. The next attack will be in the San Francisco area, but they do not know which source or how many water sources will be poisoned.

Although this novel is a work of fiction, the science is real, which makes it especially frightening. It was a minuscule amount of polonium that was used to kill the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko. It gets concentrated in the body and is deposited in vital organs where the alpha rays wreak havoc. The possibility of such a threat to our water systems is very frightening. The polonium threat was well documented. The placement of Lara and Uri in Tehran gives a glimpse of life in this foreign area. The details about the food and lifestyle were interesting.

The super-human strengths and abilities displayed by Lara and Uri were unrealistic. There were so many terrorist agents in separate groups, some of them introduced late in the book, that it was difficult to keep track of them all. I would have liked to have heard something more about Eddie after his initial discovery.

I recommend this book to people who enjoy a thriller. The tension remains high throughout the book. There is a lot of anti-Semitic talk amongst the Jihadists. I found the hate to be very unsettling. I do not recommend it to anyone who may be sensitive to hate and violence. I recommend mature audiences.

Waterworks is well edited. I rate this book 4 out of 4 stars. Mr. Winneck is familiar with the area of all the settings of the book. He is also well versed in the science of polonium and nuclear reactors.

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Waterworks
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