S. Andrew Swann
Emperors of the Twilight (1994)
Moreau #2
Reviewed: 1999-09-25

Evi Isham is a frank, the result of human genetic engineering. Created by Japanese scientists, in her childhood trained as a Jordanian intelligence operative, captured in an Israeli raid and turned against her former masters, survivor of the Islamic Axis' victory, refugee to the United States, outlawed, despised, she now works for the (National Security?) Agency. Six years have passed since her involvement in the events in Forests of the Night, where a lowly private investigator in Cleveland unraveled an unprecedented conspiracy. Since then, Evi has held an easy office job in one of the Agency's think tanks in New York.

Six pages into the novel, the bullets start flying. Somebody is trying to kill Evi. Make that everybody. Apart from her mysterious attackers, the Agency apparently has her targeted too. Feds, police, and corporate hitmen, Evi is on the run, and she will hardly catch her breath until the end of the book. Drawing on her superhuman strength and senses, she faces the unenviable tasks of desperately trying to stay alive and attempting to find out just what is going on. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that whatever it is, it's something big.

Swann delivers a nonstop action novel against his by now familiar mid-21st century setting. There is less of a mystery component than there was in his first novel, Evi's course is guided by a rush of external forces she has little power to alter. Witnessing her feelings, we firsthand experience Evi's indisputable humanity, a status she is so sadly denied by most of her environment.

A high adrenalin run, quite superbly executed.


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