I rarely read thrillers; I prefer character-driven stories over those in which the plot is the main event. I did enjoy this one because it is a fast-paced race against time. There were many threads which were expertly woven together, giving the story more depth. Mr. Mofina writes well, with realistic dialogue. ( )

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A fast paced thriller from the first page to the last page! I will admit I was drawn to this book based on a simple review on the cover by Dean Koontz, one of my favorite authors. If he liked it, I was bound to! The story begins with a bombing in a Brazilian café, killing an informant and two news media personnel. We are quickly moved to Wyoming, where a woman, her husband and child are involved in a hit and run accident. Her husband dies but she is sure that she has seen someone take her child from the scene. Her belief is so strong that she continues on her own investigation to prove her child is still alive. Jack Gannon is assigned to find out why the café in Brazil was bombed and who was involved. Through the investigations of both these characters we meet a brilliant, rogue scientist who has stolen intelligence from a US biochemical project she was assigned to. Her past and growing madness lead her to develop experiments leading to the ability to control who lives and dies. She will go to any means necessary to succeed, to conceal her experiments and expunge those who get too close to the truth. ( )

The Panic Zone is a fabulous thriller. It has all the elements that I look for in a novel from this genre - a sympathetic hero who is facing almost-unbeatable odds, interesting subplots that weave together in unexpected ways, and an ever-increasing pace towards an explosive climax.

This book is a real page turner! Jack Gannon is an investigative reporter who finds that his determination to uncover the truth puts him in increasingly dangerous situations. As he travels the world in search of sources and information to get to the bottom of a bomb blast that killed two of his journalistic colleagues, he finds that the story is much, much bigger than he could have expected.

Add to this a mad scientist with plans for a drastic solution to over-population, a grieving mother who is sure that her baby is still alive, a terrorist plot, and a human-trafficking ring.

There's action aplenty, and yet I never found the plot confusing. The Panic Zone is a well-written, enjoyable and exciting read.

I highly recommend The Panic Zone as fabulous recreational reading for men and women that enjoy thrillers.

I read this on my Kindle as an ebook ARC made available by the publishers Harlequin (Mira) through NetGalley.

Gretchen Sutsoff is convinced the world is running out of time. The current rate of population growth is simply unsustainable and will result in the exhaustion of food and water sooner than later. She has also developed a pathological loathing of crowds. She believes science can provide the immediate answer to the problem: the use of synthetic biological agents that will result in population reducation through DNA manipulation.

THE PANIC ZONE is a race against time - for Gretchen to implement her plan, for Emma Lane to find her son Tyler snatched from the car crash that killed her husband, and for investigative journalist Jack Gannon to discover why two colleagues had to die in Rio de Janiero.

The reader is a bystander who sees these threads racing to a collision point. Tight plotting and a constant focus on the possible connections between the threads help build the tension.

The author Rick Mofina says that in crafting THE PANIC ZONE he was inspired in part by the public record and accounts of people subjected to experimentation without their consent. He asks readers to bear in mind "that THE PANIC ZONE is ... a work of fiction drawn in my imagination after reaching into the darkest corners of historical fact". He apologises for any "implausibility in my made-up tale", and while the threads of the main story do at times strain the bounds of credibility (I had a couple of time sequence problems), at the same time THE PANIC ZONE makes engrossing reading.

I particularly liked Mofina's final words to the reader:

Which brings me to you, the reader; the most critical part of the entire enterprise.

Thank you very much for your time, for without you a book remains an untold tale. ( )