Ghost Dancer

Ghost Dancer by John Case (pseudonym for Jim & Carolyn Hougan) was originally published in 2007. My hardcover copy has 381 pages. Ghost Dancer was different from the other Case novels I've read. This was more a novel of intrigue, science, and mystery than a fast paced thriller, although there were exciting moments. You also need to note that there was a lot of information on Nikola Tesla and his work included and it is intrinsic to the story. It was very interesting and I highly recommend it, but it's also less thrill-intensive than pervious Case novels. Rating 4.5

Synopsis from publisher:

Photojournalist Mike Burke carried his camera into every war zone and hellhole on earth - and came back with the pictures (and battle scars) to prove it. He was flying high until, quite suddenly, he wasn't. When Burke's helicopter crashed and burned in Africa, he came away with his life but lost his heart to the beautiful woman who saved him. That's when he decided it was time to stop dancing with the devil. But a wicked twist of fate puts an end to Burke's dreams, leaving him adrift in Dublin with bittersweet memories . . . and no appetite for danger. But neither danger - nor the devil - is done with him yet.

An ocean away, Jack Wilson leaves prison burning for revenge. Like Mike Burke, Jack has had something taken from him. And he, too, dreams of starting life over. Only Jack's dream is the rest of the world's nightmare. Driven by his obsession with a Native American visionary, and guided by the secret notebooks of Nikola Tesla, the man who is said to have "invented the twentieth century," Wilson dreams of the Apocalypse - and plans to make it happen.

As a terrifying worldwide chain reaction is set in motion, one thing stands between Jack Wilson and the time of reckoning he is calling forth: Mike Burke. With nothing left to lose, and little understanding of precisely whom and what he's facing, Burke risks everything, one last time, in a battle of wits with an enemy who knows no fear . . . and shows no mercy.

Quotes:

"There was this...ping.

A single, solitary noise that announced itself in the key of C - ping! - and that was that." opening

"In an instant, his life - his whole life - passed before his eyes against a veering background of forest and sky." pg. x

"Sometimes he thinks he's a character in a novel." pg. 7

"The first thing Jack Wilson did when he got to Washington was take a bath. Which was strange. Because baths had never been his thing, not at all. But after nine years of showering under surveillance, the prospect of a long hot soak by himself was irresistible." pg. 8

"Supermax was different. He'd spent four years in the Feds' Administrative Maximum prison in Colorado, locked down twenty-three hours a day for the first two years." pg. 18

"The past softens. What begins as a massacre is packaged as news and consumed as 'infotainment.' Eventually it turns into a television miniseries." pg. 21

"I think what Ray's suggesting is, this isn't about the airport. It's about the man with the sling. Someone was testing him....not the airport's security." pg. 33

"There wasn't anything to be done about the splashes of scar tissue on his chest and shoulders, but the doctors were able to make his ear, or what was left of it 'cosmetically acceptable.' " pg. 41

"It was quite a resume to compile in a short stretch of time: drug trafficker, arms dealer, gem smuggler. But the rewards were commensurate with the risks. If it wasn't the safest way for someone with no funds to make a lot of money, but it was the fastest." pg. 64

"And what he found was terrifying. Kovalenko surfed for diseases the way guys surfed for porn," pg. 232