Here are a few favorite reviews and reader comments on the first book.
Please feel free to post your thoughts, and I’ll add new items as I get them.
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Between the Lines, 01/08.
Jack Henderson’s CIRCUMFERENCE OF DARKNESS (Bantam pb 12/07) is so good, you’ll have a hard time believing it’s a first novel. The plot is terrific: a brilliant computer hacker, known as Phr33k, is abducted by terrorists who want him to help them bring down the U.S. The country’s only hope for survival: a beautiful 22-year-old prodigy, Jeannie Reese, who, after 9/11, designed the country’s new high-tech surveillance system. This is the sort of story Michael Crichton could knock out of the park, but Henderson doesn’t need Crichton’s help to hit a homer. An exciting, suspenseful, and frighteningly plausible near-future thriller.
December 26, 2007: CoD Paperback is available!
.Listen to the radio ad that’s running for the new paperback edition of Circumference of Darkness:
[audio:CoD_radio_ad_01_08a.mp3]
.Bantam Dell, the U.S. publisher of Circumference of Darkness, ran a nice ad in the Wall Street Journal during launch week. Click the image to the left to see it.
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.Publishing News, U.K., May 18, 2007.Publishing News ran a full-page essay on the origins of the book, and it’s available here.
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Register-Pajaronian Online, July 26, 2007
A suspenseful, action packed techno-thriller with beguiling characters, this highly imaginative debut novel marks Jack Henderson as a rising star in the genre. From start to finish, “Circumference of Darkness” is a riveting page turner of the highest quality.
BookLoons, July 25, 2007
Circumference of Darkness is a very intelligent, high-tech thriller whose protagonists are super-geeks. You know you’re in good hands from the initial Einstein quote, ‘As the circle of light increases, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.‘ The villains are conspiracy theorists, the good guys soon join them, and by the end of this impossible to put down debut novel the reader is sold too.
Contra Costa Times, July 15, 2007
Be prepared to be awed, amazed and scared silly by the information your government routinely tracks in its efforts to keep you safe. “Darkness” is a high-tech “1984.”
The Day, July 9, 2007
Currently, my favorite review of the book:
This is the ultimate paranoid conspiracy thriller in a high-tech package, and the action roars by like a fast train full of caffeinated comic book writers…
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Times of London, June 2, 2007
Jack Henderson’s nail-bitingly tense Maximum Impact (Hachette, CDs, £15.99, offer £14.39) takes place in the electronic battlezone, opening in a cybergenius’s screen-lined, robot-run apartment on the day of the destruction of the World Trade Centre. John Fagan watches with more disbelief than most: the double hit was the opening of a multi-faceted strike on the US that he had outlined in principle 18 years before in an internet chatroom favoured by antieverything nerds. It emerges that his plan did indeed inspire one of them, now placed high in darkest neocon territory and eager to locate Fagan and to create even more damage.
But the Feds are on to him, led by Jeannie Reese, a woman who was a maths prodigy and chess grandmaster at the age of 6 and hasn’t looked back. Kerry Shale reads with clipped menace, dry humour and nicely varied pace, making even the most fantastical science, and the unexpected romance between Fagan and Reese, convincing.
Maximum Impact is a highly imaginative, relentlessly paced page-turner. Jack Henderson gives us two of the brainiest heroes in thriller fiction and a frightening scenario of terrorist Armaggedon. It’s a roller-coaster read in the best tradition of Tom Clancy.”
–Jeff Abbott, author of the bestselling novels Fear and Panic
Circumference of Darkness is the best debut I’ve read in a long time. Henderson has the kind of talent that doesn’t come along every day and is sure to win him wide acclaim.”
–Kyle Mills, New York Times bestselling author of The Second Horseman
BookList (Starred Review)
The publishers are touting this near-future (as in just around the corner) thriller as a debut novel, but it’s so accomplished that readers will be astounded to think that it could have come from a first novelist. The plot is terrific: a brilliant computer hacker, known as Phr33k, is abducted by terrorists who want him to help them bring down the U.S. The country’s only hope for survival: a beautiful 22-year-old prodigy, Jeannie Reese, who, after 9/11, designed the country’s new high-tech surveillance system.
The characters are sharply drawn; the narrative moves at a brisk clip (while slowing down frequently enough to let us catch our breath and digest information); and the dialogue, while peppered with technical lingo, flows smoothly, as though it were spoken by actual human beings. This really is quite an achievement and something of a rarity: a high-tech thriller with believable characters and a meaningful story. It’s the kind of thing Michael Crichton does well when he’s at the top of his game, but that most wannabe thriller writers never manage to pull off. Henderson looks like the real thing; watch him closely.
– David Pitt, BookList
*****
In his debut, Jack Henderson acts like a veteran thriller writer with strong plotting, solid three dimensional characterizations (especially the lead misfits) and exciting action adventure scenarios that grip readers from the onset. CIRCUMFERENCE OF DARKNESS is one of the best the thrillers to come along in years. The two protagonists are social misfits trying to save the world that neither feels comfortable in. Readers will admire their courage and perseverance.
– Harriet Klausner, #1 Ranked Reviewer on Amazon.com
WOW! This is a complex, riveting thriller that engrosses readers and intertwines them in unimaginable possibilities. I didn’t set this book down until I’d read the last intriguing page.
– Mandy Burns, FreshFiction.com
