A slimy D.C. lobbyist--is there any other kind?--sets off a war between supercolliding physicists and supercredulous evangelical Christians in an unusually alarming and thoughtful thriller. Preston (Tyrannosaur Canyon, 2005, etc.), who often teams with Lincoln Child, presses every middle-class panic button he can reach in this lightning-fast tale of science pushing toward the edge and religion pushing back in the Arizona desert, where a $40 billion atom smasher seems to be talking as if it is God. The giant experimental apparatus fills miles of abandoned coal mine tunnels deep under Indian territory, sucking up enough electricity to power an entire time zone and enough public funds to attract serious attention from all kinds of mischief makers. There is a problem. The smasher has yet to do its ultimate deed. Every time the team of deeply dedicated scientists manning the gizmo push for maximum power, a smartass message pops up on the screen, possibly from the Deity. Meanwhile, in Washington, a K Street fixer dropped by his Arizona Indian clients encourages a revolting televangelist to spread the message that the scientists are spending public money on anti-Christian tasks. Recovering CIA agent Wyman Ford is dropped into Indian territory to get a read on the physicists and, while he's at it, to smooth things over with the Indians. As Ford burrows into scientific secrets, a scrawny and ultimately murderous missionary, who has had little success converting the Indians, hooks up with the televangelist and takes on a new mission: to smash the atom smashers and end the conversation they appear to be having with someone who is either a very clever hacker or the Originator of the Universe. Ford and the Indians are alone in their skepticism about the need for an apocalypse. Clever and terrifying. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Religion and science clash in the middle of the New Mexico desert in Preston's latest page-turner. A gigantic supercollider designed to study the beginning of the big bang is christened Isabella by the scientists who built her. The initial experiments exceed all of their expectations. Meanwhile, a charismatic televangelist accuses the people responsible for Isabella of challenging God and Genesis. To find out what is really going on, the federal government sends in Wyman Ford (last seen in Tyrannosaur Canyon) to uncover the truth from the secretive scientists. Naturally, one of the researchers is someone with whom Ford had a volatile relationship years earlier. Preston balances the fine line between fundamentalism and science with a sure hand and joins Michael Crichton as a master of suspenseful novels that tackle controversial issues in the realm of science. Highly recommended for all public libraries.-Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Preston, one-half of the writing team responsible for the excellent Special Agent Pendergast thrillers, appears less sure-footed when he's working solo. His latest has a fascinating premise: the American government has spent $40 billion on a new supercollider that will, if all goes well, reveal the mechanics behind the big bang. However, when the machine goes online, the team of researchers makes a startling, and perhaps world-shattering, discovery. Wyman Ford, a former CIA agent, is sent by the government to join the supercollider team and find out what secrets they may be keeping to themselves. But he didn't count on a Fundamentalist preacher using the supercollider research for his own greedy purposes, and he certainly didn't count on murder. Preston tells the story well but without the elegance of the Pendergast novels, and he seems to be dumbing down the scientific component (he provides two virtually identical explanations of how a supercollider works, not even 40 pages apart from one another, and then piles on numerous repetitive passages of dialogue, as though he thinks it's all too complicated for his readers). Still, leaving hiccups in style and exposition aside, this is a fast-paced and intellectually stimulating thriller that sets out to deliver a wallop and doesn't let us down. Readers interested in exploring the science-versus-religion debate will be particularly entranced.--Pitt, David Copyright 2007 Booklist

Like Isabella, a giant "superconducting supercollider particle accelerator," the thought-provoking new thriller from bestseller Preston (Tyrannosaur Canyon) takes a while to power up, but once it does, this baby roars. The ostensible goal of Isabella's creator, physicist Gregory North Hazelius, is to discover new forms of energy, but what he really wants is to talk to God. The project, located inside Red Mesa ("a five-hundred-square-mile tableland on the Navajo Indian Reservation"), is behind schedule, so presidential science adviser Stanton Lockwood hires ex-CIA man Wyman Ford to go to Red Mesa and find out what's causing the holdup. Meanwhile, a Navajo medicine man, a televangelist and a pastor who runs a failed mission on the reservation are gearing up to pull the plug on Isabella before she destroys the earth. Science has often tangled with religion in this genre, but Preston puts his own philosophical spin on the usual proceedings, and when he gets his irate villagers with their burning torches headed for the castle, the pages simply fly. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved