The Panic Zone

Rick Mofina follows up his first rate thriller, Vengeance Road, with an encore performance in The Panic Zone. Both feature newcomer Jack Gannon, a top notch journalist with a tortured past. Despite recognition for his writing skills, he still must battle to win respect in the cutthroat world of the newsroom. When he isn't staring down the barrel of a gun while pursuing leads in a cafe bombing, he's fighting his jealous colleagues to keep his story alive. And you thought your job was tough? Rick's hero is a little different from the usual detective/private eye/FBI character we see in crime fiction. Yet we shouldn't be surprised. Journalists around the globe are often the first at a crime scene, ready to report the facts to the reading public. Yet this tenacious talent puts them in the crosshairs between cops who don't want to reveal crucial information and gangsters who don't want anyone to shine the light on their criminal activities. Rick Mofina does a great job of showing us this hidden world while giving us a page turner that I couldn't put down. While investigating a bombing in Brazil that killed two of his co-workers, Jack Gannon stumbles across evidence of a child adoption ring that may involves terrorism on a massive scale. His instincts and leads take him to the slums of Rio de Janeiro, to London and then Morocco. Along the way he crosses paths with a woman whose son is presumed dead but has actually been kidnapped in order to serve as the host to a deadly biological weapon. If Jack can put the clues together, he can reunite the son with his desperate mother and prevent an international catastrophe. A first rate thriller with a working class hero that could be anyone of us. One man can make a difference in the world. Jack Gannon proves it.

I couldn't put this book down...really its 3am! It was fabulous even once I figured the story line out it still sent me on twists and turns. There is some scary stuff in this story but nothing so far fetched that it takes away from the adventure. I felt Emma's frustration and the thrill of chasing a good story. The characters were great very believable real people that all played an important role in this exhilirating story. Even with Gannon's incredible bad luck your hoping he pulls it off right to the last page. This is the third book I have read by Mr. Mofina, previous two were real page-turners as well I am sad this book was so good I finished it so soon but am eager to see what he keeps me up all night with next.

I saw this book in my local Post Exchange while on a walk with my son. I am very into books like this, so I stopped to read the first few pages, then flipped over to read the back. I decided to give it a try and download it on my Kindle. I have been reading this to my son for the passed few days and all I can say is this book is intense! My son has been a little fussy and just reading to him has calmed him immensely, I think he's interested in where the book will go. So far, I am 75% through the book, but it is amazing! I can't wait to see how Emma's car crash, the bombing in Brazil, what happened in Moracco and the event in New York are all tied together!!

After his serial killer reporting for the Buffalo Sentinel (see Vengeance Road), Melody Lyons hires Jack Gannon to work for The World Press Alliance. His peers at the Manhattan office feel strongly he is not their equal and needs to shuffle back to Buffalo. However, Melody believes they don't know Jack. She sends him to Rio to determine whether a WPA journalist and photographer, who died in a bombing, were the intended victims and if so why. In Big Cloud, Wyoming, Emma Lane survives a fiery car crash when she was thrown from the vehicle in which her spouse died and investigators assume their baby did too though she swears she saw her infant rescued; neither assertion re the child can be proven. On a Caribbean cruse, forty years old Roger Tippert dies horribly; the medical examiner is unable to find the cause so forwards the findings to the CDC. As Jack works the Brazilian case, he rules out a drug gang as the police and the fuming local WPA insist and seeks nebulous ties to the Caribbean and Wyoming incidents that places him in trouble with a dangerous person; making him wonder if his colleagues are right about a shuffle to Buffalo. This action-packed international thriller hooks the reader from the opening gamut until the final confrontation. The story line is fast-paced while the audience wonders what if anything connects the dots so seemingly apart. Jack is terrific as he tries to solve the case and prove his worthiness, but learns a valuable lesson about being alone as he investigates. As with his first thriller (see Vengeance Road), Jack's second journalistic investigation is an exciting novel. Harriet Klausner

Gripping and mesmerizing from the very first chapter, Rick Mofina's latest thriller explores a chilling conspiracy that is guaranteed to get your heart pounding. A car crash in Wyoming, involving a young couple and their baby, sets The Panic Zone into rapid motion. The next day, a reporter in Brazil gets a call to meet an unidentified woman at a cafe; the woman claims to have a news story, and the documents to back it up. The reporter and her photographer friend have no idea what they're walking into, and the resulting chaos sends World Press Alliance reporter Jack Gannon across the globe in search of the truth. But the truth is more shocking than anyone could fathom. A twisted scientist gathers a secret group of conspirators and puts into action a horrific plot that threatens the very existence of mankind, proving once again that science can be a deadly plaything if it falls into the wrong hands. From human experimentation without consent, to a killer virus constructed from some of the world's deadliest toxins and a unique delivery system that will chill you to the bone, The Panic Zone will keep you turning the pages. With a storytelling talent comparative to Michael Crichton and Robert Ludlum, Mofina expertly weaves the plot with intricate, terrifying and believable details. The Panic Zone is excellently researched and the clearly defined chapters show alternating points of view as only a master writer could achieve. Another Mofina masterpiece--one I can't recommend enough. Cheryl Kaye Tardif, bestselling author of The River [...].