The Devil's Workshop

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining.
Review: After microbiologist Stacy Richardson gets shocking news that her scientist husband killed himself at Fort Detrick, she finds that he knew of illegal work being done there by the Military. Suspecting that he was murdered, she teams with former Marine officer Cris Cunningham to find that a secret lab at Detrick is producing deadly prions that target specific races. It is testing the prions on human prisoners. Admiral Zoll, in charge of the project, orders Stacy and Cris killed. But a complication arises when a white supremacist preacher sets out to steal the prions to use to wipe out minorities. All in all, it's a rousing thriller that will keep you turning pages.

Rating:
Summary: A Whole Lot of Moving
Review: As I finished this novel (it is a novel, it's part of the title) I was struck by how many times the author "moved" his characters. These characters never ran or walked, the always "moved." As in, Cris moved to the door. Not a big problem but after several hundred pages it became annoying.

The story is ok, nothing special, more like a TV movie. The real problem is the timing. On one page Cannell says it is 8:30am and a bright crisp day and on the next page it is pitch black with dark clouds covering the moon. Later the evil folk outrun a train, on foot, and through mountains.

So, if you can get past the moving and timing then the story is passable. Not award winning, but with some character changes it could have been an A-Team episode.

Rating:
Summary: The Little People Fight Back
Review: Here is a great example of microbiological experimentation and the dangers of dealing with what is essentially a weapon in which no one really has total control. In this case, during the testing phase in which the virus is to be delivered to the test subjects via mosquitoes, some escape the test chamber, beginning a chain reaction of human devastation.

The saviour of the world comes in the form of two people who are seeking vengeance after their lives are touched by the creators of the new bio-weapon. The first is Stacey Richardson whose husband was a microbiologist working on a military installation. She wants answers after her husband is murdered but his body has been set up to look as though he committed suicide. The second is Cris Cunningham, an ex-marine and Gulf War hero who now carries a devastating virus thanks to an American-made bio-weapon used by the enemy. He's after vengeance, but is hampered by a serious drinking problem.

The action really takes off after a series of suspicious events in east Texas which lead Stacey and Cris to return to the scene of the disastrous test. In Cris' former life, he was a hobo, catching rides on passing freight trains and it's this means of transportation that they use as they chase a group of renegade killers who have gotten their hands on a batch of the deadly virus.

This is the classic underdog scenario where people who have been terribly wronged by those with power take matters into their own hands and fight back against the odds. Throw in a few off-beat characters and an unusual chase sequence and you've got a non-stop thriller that provides for very entertaining reading.

Rating:
Summary: I never even finished this book
Review: I enjoyed reading this one. As you may know, Steven Cannell is an extremely successful television producer, who has changed his focus to writing novels.

For the first 100 pages, I thought "The Devil's Workshop" was a cross between "The Corbra Event"/"Hot Zone" by Richard Preston and Cannell's TV show, "Renegade" starring Fernadoz Lamas. I was biased. But I gave the guy a chance, and the book turned-out to be quite good. Writting novels allows Cannell to expand on his material, beyond the normal television scripts.

For example, there is a character, "Buddy Brazil", a Hollywood producer who I found to be an interesting mixture of man consumed by his self fabricated macho image confronted with a dangerous reality that exposes his limitations. The internal dialouge Buddy has with himself, about his life and hollow achievements, is very good.

Rating:
Summary: 2 Stars for Readability, but that's about it.
Review: I think just about everyone is familiar with the name of Stephen J. Cannell. If you ever turned your television on during the late 80's and early 90's, you have already experienced his style of entertainment. Lots of gun play, explosions and over the top baddies and lackeys.

"The Devil's Workshop" tries very hard to be a suspenseful action/adventure novel... however I think it suffers from one too many story lines. Cannell throws in so many stereotypical characters, it's silly. All with cheesy made-for-tv names like: "Lucky" Cunningham, Dexter Demille, Admiral Zoll and the completely over-the-top religious zealot/hobo/white supremacist (some combo!) Reverend Fannon Kincaid. Also thrown into this tale are a series of disposable background characters; none of whom advance the story very much.

Here's the gist of the story... the government has illegally designed a race-specific airborne virus (scary!), but it's been discovered by grieving widow/microbiologist Stacey Richardson. The Feds try and cover up their tracks, only to have one of the creators elude their hit-squad and team up with Kincaid and his train-riding brethren.

The rating of two stars is for the readability of "The Devil's Workshop." Mr. Cannell provides a fairly decent yarn, but I'm afraid he lost me at the final three pages. No spoilers here, but, let's just say that the ending was far too trite and convenient. This is an extremely light read for a boring plane ride or car trip. Readers will not be taxed too greatly.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I'll admit I had trouble with this book. Stacy, the main character, is suddenly widowed when her husband's murder is labeled a suicide. The finger of blame rest s firmly on Admiral Zoll and illegal bio-weapons research being conducted at Fort Detrick under his direction.

While we are supposed to like Stacy, I found her rude and unsympathetic. Most of the characters were 2 dimensional and occaisionally they just "showed up" without any ground work for why they were there. In many ways the book reads like a fleshed out screen play.

As to the plot, it revolves around prions used to target specific populations based on DNA markers. This is an intriguing idea, and certainly within the realm of possibility. A prion based bio-weapon in the wrong hands is a frightening concept, and of course, that is what happens.

However, the bad guys were really just bad. Character development consisted foul language, tattoos and cliche descriptions.

The problem was the good guys came across the same way (minus the tattoos).

If you have nothing better to do for an afternoon, it may be worth a look.

Rating:
Summary: I really liked it. Just fast, fun reading!
Review: Ok, I feel like I should apologize, but I absolutely love Stephen J. Cannell. I can't wait for The Tin Collectors to come out! He writes easy to pick up, hard to put down, good ol' fiction! What I appreciate is the way he writes his books all on vastly different subjects, like Michael Crichton does. He doesn't follow just one template and re-vamp it for every novel.

The Devil's Workshop is a novel of biological threats, a mad scientist, a beautiful woman, and Trains! I loved the train part! I was suprised by the revelation about our rail-riding friend in the book, but I'm sure not everyone was. Plot twists, engaging dialogue, and action from start to finish make this a book I highly recommend for an entertaining weekend read.

Rating:
Summary: BIO-WEAPONS & RIDING THE RAILS--DO I HEAR A HALLELJAH?
Review: Stephen J. Cannell, while one of the most prestigious writers and producers in the television industry, is quickly making a mark for himself as a novelist. In his newest book, THE DEVIL'S WORKSHOP, he takes the reader into the world of microbiology and the apparent dangers a bio-weapon can represent in the hands of the wrong people. The story deals with Stacey Richardson, a graduate student in the field of microbiology at USC. When her husband, Max, supposedly commits suicide while on a sabbatical at Fort Detrick, Maryland, to do research with the famous Dr. Dexter Demille, she doesn't buy it for one moment. In fact, Stacey believes that her husband was murdered to cover up something at Fort Detrick, and that Admiral James Zoll(the man in charge of the military facility) and Dr. Demille were behind it. She's determined to get to the bottom of her huband's death and punish the people responsible for it. This leads her to Vanishing Lake, Texas, where Zoll and Demille are conducting experiments on prisoners. An error on Demille's part leads to the accidental release of the deadly bio-agent into the air around the nearby town, thereby infecting, not only Zoll's men, but the town's people as well. Zoll quickly decides to destroy to town in a futile effort to downsize the mistake. Stacey and two hobos manage to escape before the soldiers surround the town. One of the hobos is Chris "Lucky" Cunningham, a former Recon Marine who experienced tragedy several years before when he returned from the Gulf War with a deadly bug in his system that had been created year's earlier by Dr. Demille..a bug that would eventually be passed on to his baby daughter and kill her. Chris and Stacey decide to join forces in an attempt to stop Zoll and Demille from killing anymore people, but the challenge they face intensifies when they realize that the fanatic hobo priest, the Reverend Fannon Kincaid, and his small army of zealous followers were also at Vanishing Lake, and now they want the bio-agent for themselves so that they can do a little ethnic cleansing around the country. All that I've described so far is just the tip of the iceberg and doesn't even begin to cover the complexity of the plot and the large number of characters moving in and out of the story. Mr. Cannell does offer the reader a good bit of information regarding the subjects of mircobiology and the art of being a hobo, as well as how to ride the train rails. Though THE DEVIL's WORKSHOP is a "fun" book to read, at no point did I ever buy the premise of the story. This, however, isn't necessarily bad. I would call this type of novel a "Saturday-morning" read. It's fast and entertaining, but it does require a large suspension of belief. Think of a made-for-television movie, or a two-part mini-series and you get the idea of what I'm talking about. Still, I've enjoyed other of Mr. Cannell's books and have just recently purchased KING CON in paperback. If you know what to expect, I don't feel you'll be disappointed with this book. Simply take the novel for what it is and have some fun.

Rating:
Summary: This book is a must read!
Review: The Devils Workshop is my all time favorite book. It ties together so many different subjects: science, love, action... It's so easy to get hooked on, I've read it at least ten times...and I'm still not bored of it. I would definitely recommend it for anyone who loves to get lost in the action and emotion of a great book.