Unusual thriller with international nuclear intrigue - suspenseful, but uneven plot...We've read most of Martini's booklist, and frankly were somewhat surprised at the pure thriller aspect of this novel. While one expects a fair degree of "lawyering" in his (defense attorney) Paul Madriani series, Martini's non-series novels (like this one) still usually showcase a lawyer or two as the leading players. And while one observes that the leading lady in "Critical Mass", Jocelyn Cole, is indeed a one-woman law office, that role is almost incidental to the suspenseful plot that follows about two missing Russian nuclear devices. In an almost Clancy-like early part of the book, we're treated to alternating scenes of the devices out on the ocean, to a new mystery client visiting Cole, to a surprise explosion of a small plane with its pilot aboard. From there we're soon engrossed in a tale to identify the whereabouts of the bombs, complete with high-level political machinations to keep everything quiet under direct orders of the President himself (not so unlikely anymore!). The storyline proceeds to threaten the life of our leading lady and a new sidekick, Gideon van Ry, from a nuclear tracking institute; and before it's all over, a number of surprises conspire to amuse and entertain! We might give this enjoyable book higher marks if were just a tad more plausible. While the basic premise of the old Soviet Union losing track or selling some of its old nuclear stuff is not that far-fetched, most of the action that follows, from the stealthy Navy Seal attack, to the multiple brushes with death that befall our heros, to the closing scenes near the Smithsonian are mostly pretty tough to swallow. While we agree with Martini's fan club that "Mass" is a worthwhile outing, we'd prefer he stick to legal topics he knows just a little more about - and leave the military skullduggery to Clancy et al!
I was three chapters into this before I realized, “hey, this isn’t a Paul Madriani book!”. But it’s fine, because it was still a fun read. If you’ve read Sum of all Fears by Tom Clancy then you’ve already read this book, but I still enjoyed it. Is it a bad thing that I was rooting hard for the bad guys? I liked the protagonists, but the rest of the “good guys” left a lot to be desired. Anyway, I’m running out of Madriani books so I ordered everything else Martini has written. In fact there are now only three of his books total that I haven’t read.
What do You think about Critical Mass (1999)?
This is a real page turner, filled with tension and suspense. The plot could have been today's newspaper headlines. It is a story of what can and may already have happened in a world where private hate and public apathy combined with an abundance of carelessly inventoried nuclear weapons to uncork the bottle containing the deadly nuclear genie. The consequences far outweight the mayhem of opening Pandora's Box. It is riveting with realism and genuine with its characters. Caution: read at your own risk. If you pick it up, you will not be able to put it down.
—London Steverson
Jocelyn "Joss" Cole, a burned-out public defender from L.A., has opted for a quieter life in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. Joss has no significant clients other than a group of commercial fisherman suffering from a strange and serious illness, a condition that doctors cannot diagnose, and which Joss believes has an industrial cause. Then into her office comes Dean Belden, a well-heeled client in search of a lawyer to help him set up a business in the islands. Within days Belden is subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury. Less than an hour after testifying, and before Joss can discover what happened in the secrecy of the grand jury room, Belden dies in a fiery explosion of his float plane on Seattle's Lake Union. Gideon Van Ry is a nuclear fission expert and a scholar in residence at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. One of his duties is to update the Center's database, an extensive catalog listing fissionable materials and weapons of mass destruction. Gideon is troubled by the apparent failure to account for two small tactical nuclear devices missing from a storage facility in the former Soviet Union.The two weapons were last seen in packing crates, to be shipped to an American company called Belden Electronics. Gideon has been unable to locate this firm, and now he is left with only one possible lead, the lawyer who incorporated the company-Jocelyn Cole. Fraught with tension and suspense, Critical Mass is Steve Martini at his electrifying best. It is the story of what can happen in a world where private hate and public apathy combine to uncork the sleeping but deadly genie of nuclear terror.
—Jo Sorrell
