Sabrina Galloway is a scientist at EchoEnergy, a company that has revolutionised oil making… they are making it from organic materials, they are breaking through in alternative fuel methods. The company is getting very successful. However, one day she is called up by the big boss, William Sidel’s, secretary. She is to give a tour of the plant because her boss, Dwight Lansik, has not reported in for the day, though she does not know it is because he has been murdered. Sabrina finds this odd, and deals with some blowback from her colleagues for being the chosen one to take up in his stead. Sabrina presents the tour to some potential investors and a powerful American senator, who is lobbying to get the US Military oil contract moved from overseas powers back to American ones. Senator Allen does not do well at the tour. While giving the tour, Sabrina notices that Reactor #5 is on, and knows that it must be a mistake, that they are still years away from having that section of the company approved and up and running.
Meanwhile, a hitman is on the move after having exterminated Dwight Lansik, who stood in the way of whatever is going down at EchoEnergy. His employer feels that Sabrina Galloway may be a threat, seeing as she has started asking some questions. She has become his next target. Sabrina is a quiet person with no real life and a delusional/sick father who has gone into care. She is still having difficulty dealing with her mother’s passing two years before, and her only friend is her incredibly old neighbour, Miss Sadie. Other forces are at work, and all seem intricately connected to what is going on at EchoEnergy. Senators, secret agencies and apparent terrorists are all vying for differing outcomes of the company, and all will do varying degrees of terrifying things to realise their goals. Sidel and Senator Allen seem to have a bond, though they are not friends. They have a mutual interest in making sure the military contract comes through, though both for different reasons. Jason Brill is Senator Allen’s chief of staff, and is playing all the games to make sure his boss makes it big, though he is not in the loop with as much as he though he was, which becomes evident. Natalie Richards, on the other hand, seems to be working strongly against someone, and has some powerful players in her corner.
Sabrina is a little shaky after visiting her dad, Arthur, when a car runs her off the road. She feels that she was lucky that the injuries weren’t more serious. Picking up a rental vehicle, she starts sniffing around more and more, looking for answers on Lansik, who has just disappeared and magically “quit” his job. Leon, the hitman, has his own set of issues when the news makes it back to him that he was unsuccessful in taking out Sabrina Galloway, who is rapidly becoming a thorn in his side. Sabrina decides to have a look see outside the building as to what is going on, and finds out that there is waste being pumped into the river that is definitely not organic, and grabs the hunk of junk blocking the flow of the pipes to have it tested and find out more. Going to meet with the building maintenance man, she is running late, and he is supposed to show her that Reactor #5 is definitely not in working order. Arriving late, she witnesses Leon throw her coworker, Anna, into the huge tank below, and manages to make it out in time.
Sabrina runs, with Miss Sadie’s help, and looks for her brother, Eric, who her father insists is living in Florida. Meeting up with Eric, whom she has not seen since her mother’s death, Sabrina needs to set aside her differences and pleads for his help. Eric bands together a group and they start looking into EchoEnergy as well as who has an interest in what is going on. However, he is keeping many secrets of his own, and seems to be intent on keeping them. Who has employed Leon to kill Sabrina and why? Why was Dwight Lansik killed? How are all the different groups connected? Who is protecting whose interests? Will Eric and Sabrina ever have a normal relationship with each other again? Is their father really as delusional as they think? Who are all the people that Eric has brought together to help Sabrina?
This was definitely an improvement over her last novel that I read, One False Move. There was not such an insane amount of useless and forced cussing. Now, moving along. I felt that Kava tried to shroud everything in just a tad too much mystery, and continued this for way too long, so instead of it being something that makes you salivate a little, it becomes something you just roll your eyes over. Like we all love mystery, and I love it when you can keep a reader guessing right up until the end, but this was not so much like this. It just didn’t work here, and was not implemented well. There was not a single character that I could identify with, either, which is a real frustration when trying to bring the book up to something that means just a little more. It was a very simple read, even though it defied logic at times. Again, just your average book, her game has not been upped since the last one. She is not bad, just very standard, the type of filler book that you will read between other things when you are attempting to decide what you are going to invest time on.
The Sporadic Chronicles 