Review of Waterworks

[Kenna Ridzi]

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

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4 out of 4 stars

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The fifth book in the action-packed Lara and Uri series takes you on a wild ride filled with adrenaline and mystery. Waterworks by Jack Winnick begins in Los Angeles where Eddie Moskowitz works at an aqueduct filtration plant nicknamed “Waterworks”. Suddenly, he notices several birds lying dead on the ground next to the water plant, where Eddie assumes they just drank from. The workers at the plant fly into a frenzy trying to figure out what, if anything, is wrong with the water at the plant. Soon after, we discover that the water contained polonium, a deadly, nearly undetectable poison. Meanwhile, we jump to the guilty party’s perspective, the Iranians, and gain insight as to how and why this happened. After the poisoning is resolved and everyone is considered safe, the government assigns Lara and Uri to go undercover in Iran in order to spy for the Americans and expose their plans to further terrorize the United States.

Winnick did a phenomenal job with this book. The author was skilled in conveying the emotions of every single character, making the primary characters so realistic that I felt as if I was growing more familiar with them with every word I read. A primary example of this was when Eddie and everyone else at the water plant found out that the water was bad. The panic that was described was completely genuine and was conveyed through the actions, thoughts, and words of the characters involved.

I genuinely appreciated how the author expertly informed us of the effects of the poison and background knowledge of Lara and Uri while still keeping the story moving, something that surely would have hindered my enjoyment of the book if these details were drawn out and separated from the plot. Finally, the way each character was introduced into the story was flawless. Most of the perspectives connected at some point, and I enjoyed seeing the characters that I had been following separately throughout the book meet through the story.

I had very few complaints about this book. For one, I would have liked seeing Eddie Moskowitz, who introduced the story, come up again at the end of the book and maybe meet Lara and Uri instead of being a throwaway character. In addition, some parts of Lara and Uri’s mission were just too easy. The most notable example of this is that after a remarkably short amount of time in Iran, Lara met an important general whom she worked with that just happened to grow fond of her and give her access to some top-secret facilities, giving her all the information she needed.

All things considered, I think this book would be enjoyed by almost every reader to come across it. There was enough background information to read the book as a stand-alone novel, as I did, and still understand most of the references made about past missions. Because of the immense number of positive attributes in this book and because I enjoyed reading it, I rate this book four out of four stars. I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes spy or mystery novels as well as anyone who has read any of the previous Lara and Uri novels, as this continuation was remarkable.

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Waterworks
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