John Case Ghost Dancer

Ghost Dancer

John Case

Ballantine, Aug 2006, $25.95

ISBN 0345464737

Nine years in the Allenwood Penitentiary has festered Jack Wilson's hatred of America. The published mathematical genius vows revenge against the country that was stolen from his Native Americana ancestors and recently stole his patent.

Jack finds a terrorist group willing to fund the project of THE GHOST DANCER as he calls himself. He plans to replicate his hero renowned inventor Nikola Testa's alleged greatest invention, a harmonic resonance device that Jack feels changed over 1200 square miles of Siberian forest into the Tunguska crater in 1908 by altering the molecular infrastructure. Once he completes the gadget, unlike Testa who tested his device in isolated Siberia, Jack plans to experiment with Washington DC as his epicenter. Though aware of Jack's activities, the Feds argue over jurisdiction as if 9-11 and the Patriot Act never occurred; meanwhile Jack is on the brink of conducting the trial run.

This mesmerizing thriller grabs readers' attention from the moment they know Jack and maintains the audience's interest throughout. The only hope to stop THE GHOST DANCER is a former cohort with a shady laundering past, Mike Burke as the Feds are tied up in knots over command and control. The fascinating use of Testa provides a grounding into reality in which the technology to create the harmonic resonance device seems plausible. Thriller fans will want to read this terrific tense tale.

Harriet Klausner