Synopsis
*WINNER Texas Authors Book Award 2017 in Fiction/Suspense*Rules are set in stone – that is until someone shatters that rock and all hell breaks loose. A determined oil driller uses an illegal fracking method, causing a devastating earthquake and fire which destroys much of San Antonio. Cave explorers, Jesse and Jake, are trapped in the dark with a monster crocodile, long thought to be extinct – Aquasaurus – a forty-foot, 8-ton descendent of Carnufex – “The Butcher”. World-class rock climber, Rita, must overcome her lifelong fear of darkness to rescue her boyfriend Jesse. A state senator must juggle her fear losing a child, with the greater need of thousands of disaster survivors. A businessman must deal with the fear of losing a business his dying father spent a lifetime building. Why is Rita afraid of the dark? What happens when Aquasaurus escapes from the cave system and runs loose among disaster survivors? What will happen if the dangerous crocodile escapes into the Gulf of Mexico? Fear can cause people to react in unpredictable ways. Fear can distort judgment, and cause likeable people to commit irrational acts. Fear can masquerade as bravado. Fear can paralyze. Fear can provide a cover for the truth. The problem with fear, is we think fear is the problem. Everyone has a fear of something. What are you afraid of?
Reviews
Texans inadvertently discover a 40-foot prehistoric, dinosaureating crocodile ready to escape its subterranean lair in this debut thriller. Jesse Perrine’s spelunking excursion with friends Jake Hew and Cody Hughes is cut short when an injury knocks Cody out cold. The two cohorts get Cody to safety using a tarp found in the cave and are in for a shock: the tarp’s actually a reptile hide. They show the pelt to Jesse’s Texas State professor Tom Morrison, who surmises that an enormous and (supposedly) extinct crocodile lives in the Texas aquifer. Or alligator, which Tom can verify when, at his suggestion, the trio returns to the cave for “the discovery of the century.” There’s definitely something down there, as well as a few human bodies, but trouble’s brewing aboveground. TJ Howlett, before his dad’s partner gets controlling interest of HNH Oil Company, hopes to strike oil on an HNH project in reality owned by TJ’s reputedly defunct business. Desperate to crack through the granite dome blocking the drilled hole, operator Clint Marshall opts for something faster, dangerous, and not exactly legal. What he does literally shakes central Texas. It also triggers a cave-in, trapping Jesse, Jake, and Tom inside with a gargantuan crocodile—and possibly creating a passage for the creature to squeeze through and wreak chaos in the city. The novel excels at what other giant-monster stories often skip: character development and suspense. Jesse’s girlfriend, Rita Martin, for example, is more than just his love interest. She and her friend Katie are experienced rock climbers and the men’s would-be rescuers. Relationships, too, are fascinating, like Katie’s with her father, whose reveal is a surprise. Readers will be more on edge than Jesse, et. al., since they are privy to the fact that Aquasaurus, which the narrative eventually calls the creature, is indeed in the cave. There’s astonishingly little violence, but then the monster, whose ferocity is unmistakable, is a topic of discussion more often than a physical presence. Lee ends with an all-around solid wrap-up, including comatose Cody and a character (or two) who doesn’t make it, with a wide opening for another book. The scaly beast is definitely the star, but pre-attack scenes are rife with genuine trepidation and multidimensional characters.
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