Review of Final Report

[Harshada Narvekar]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Final Report" by Jeff Shear.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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Final Report by Jeff Shear is a political thriller that portrays the aftermath of a nuclear attack on the United States’ capital. The story’s protagonist, Jackson Guild, is assigned by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with the task of investigating the weapon’s management agency – Los Alamos Safety and Security’s (LASS) report.

What appears to be a post-apocalyptic fiction with a preamble of an epidemic caused by the virus mutation, soon turns out to be a political allegory where Guild tries to find out the truth about the report. Guild reaches to the town of Los Alamos, masquerading as a writer interested in post-cold war history and nuclear science, and seeks out the key physicists working in the nuclear project one by one. Amidst the inquest, Guild finds himself in a romantic entanglement with the lab’s leading physicist Alessandra Almont who is tormented about her work’s repercussions. To what lengths she will go to prevent another nuclear devastation and whether Guild will be able to untwine the web of lies, is the plot of Final Report.

The story is short and progresses at a fast pace and keeps you hanging until the end. It does struggle to find its momentum at the beginning. It provides the reader a peek into the bureaucratic interior, conspiracies, and nuclear warfare. I found some lines very well-written such as, “I tinker with the universe, and you think that makes me a queen. You tinker with human nature and you neglect your powers.” (page 106).

I thought there were too many technical details occasionally. The depiction of characters with table games obsession and fondness for alcohol was a bit redundant for me. Other than that I found the book enjoyable.

I got the book in PDF format. Although I found the writing eloquent, it was unpleasant to see abrupt changes in line spacing. For most of the text, the paragraphs were single-spaced which made reading difficult. I found several misprints and grammatical mistakes. A character’s name was written in two different ways on the same page. There was unnecessary capitalization of the alphabets a few times and requires editing.

Overall the book is very well written and not too lengthy. I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars just because of the typing and formatting errors. Bonus points for the unexpected twist at the end which left me stunned. I recommend the book to people who enjoy spy fiction and political conspiracies.

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Final Report
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