Book Review of The Terminals by Michael F. Stewart

Behind the Walls of Nightmare is pleased to participate in another Tribute Books blog tour as we welcome Michael F. Stewart, author of The Terminals (Episode 1: Spark).


             The Terminals: Book Summary 

Sometimes the dead don’t want to talk.

You need Terminals to make them.

Terminals solve crimes in this realm by investigating them in the next.

Lt. Col. Christine Kurzow, fresh from a failed suicide attempt after she cost 11 of her soldiers their lives, is recruited into the covert unit of Terminals as a handler. It's an easy sell. If she's really determined to die, it’s a chance to give her death meaning.

But her first case—convincing a monk to chase Hillar the Killer into the afterlife to find the location of a missing bus and the children it carried—has her wondering how to make a dead psychopath talk.

Christine must follow the clues sent back by the shotgun-toting monk, who tracks Hillar through the seven deeps of hell, so she can find eleven kids before it’s too late.

Maybe this time killing a man will give Christine a reason to live.

Format: ebook
Pages: 229
 Amazon buy link:
http://www.amazon.com/Michael-F.-Stewart/e/B003GUK4X4/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
 
Barnes and Noble buy link:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/michael-f-stewart



 Michael F. Stewart's Biography: 

Michael F. Stewart is the author of the Assured Destruction series, which sprawls across three books, two websites, one blog, seven Twitter accounts, Tumblr, Facebook, and six graphic origin stories. He likes to combine storytelling with technology and pioneered interactive storytelling with Scholastic Canada, Australia and New Zealand’s anti-cyberbullying program Bully For You. He has authored four graphic novels with Oxford University Press Canada’s award-winning Boldprint series. Publications of nonfiction titles on corruption and children’s rights by Rubicon Publishing, as well as early readers with Pearson, are all forthcoming in 2014 and 2015.

For adults, Michael has written The Sand Dragon, a horror about a revenant, prehistoric vampire set in the tar sands; Hurakan, a Mayan-themed thriller which pits the Maya against the MS-13 with a New York family stuck in the middle; 24 Bones, an urban fantasy which draws from Egyptian myth; and The Terminals—a covert government unit which solves crimes in this realm by investigating them in the next. This series has already been optioned for film and television with production rights having been sold to Jim Donovan (Best Director 2013, Canadian Screen Awards) and on to his partners of Sudden Storm Entertainment.

Herder of four daughters, Michael lives to write in Ottawa where he runs free writing workshops for teens and adults.

 Our Review of The Terminals

Michael F.Stewart has chosen an intriguing theme for his new series of adult novels entitled The Terminals.  The premise is that those who are dying can be enlisted to solve crimes in this world by connecting with previously departed individuals in the next. (Imagine, for example, being able to communicate with a suicide bomber to learn the targets of future attacks.) The link between the two worlds is the psychic Atilla, who is able to receive information sent back by the terminal. Terminals are carefully chosen based on their religious and spiritual beliefs in order to enter into the realm that the criminal or terrorist inhabits in the next world. In the first episode of The Terminals, the criminal is a vicious killer named Hillar who has been killed in a police shootout after kidnapping a busload of children. The job of the Terminals Unit is to track down the location of the missing children, who are facing death without food and water to sustain them. Chosen as the terminal is Charlie, a monk who is well-versed in Gnosticism, to which the killer adheres, and who must undergo an epic battle with the forces of evil to find out the children's location.

Michael F. Stewart has written a dark thriller that explores the themes of guilt, suicide, illness and suffering, spirituality, and the underlying need for human beings to believe that their lives (and deaths) serve a greater purpose. At the same time he has woven the quest motif and the universal struggle between good and evil into the novel.

The Terminals will appeal to adult readers of speculative fiction.

Best of luck with this imaginative series, Michael!


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Michael F. Stewart's Web Site:
http://www.michaelfstewart.com/

Michael F. Stewart's Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Story.Extension

Michael F. Stewart's Twitter:
https://twitter.com/MichaelFstewart

Michael F. Stewart's Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2969126.Michael_F_Stewart

The Terminals Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20743049-the-terminals

Tribute Books Blog Tours Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tribute-Books-Blog-Tours/242431245775186

The Terminals blog tour site:
http://theterminalsblogtour.blogspot.com/