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Matt Shannon is a former FBI agent. He currently works in Florida as the security chief for the world's largest cruise line. This career change is due to a mistake he made while in the FBI rather than a desire to retire to a different field. Unexpectedly, his stepbrother Jack Fontana appears. Fontana was arrested and should be serving jail time. Instead, he has been released early and has a plan that will bring them both lots of money. As Fontana has influence on Shannon due to mistakes in the past, Shannon is forced to help. In addition, Fontana has a game controller that Shannon used to accidentally sink a freighter in Miami's shipping lane. As Shannon's fingerprints are all over the device, Fontana could have Shannon arrested if he refuses to help. Fontana's big plan is to rob a cruise ship and make off with the money. As Shannon works for the cruise line, it will be easy for him to point out the risks and security measures currently in place. Fontana has a plan and his people all lined up. They include a woman that he is apparently paying to accompany them, who is a very big distraction for Shannon. Unfortunately, Fontana has secrets about this robbery attempt as well as his own life. If Shannon is to survive this heist as well as escape with his life, he must unravel Fontana's lies and secrets before they can destroy all of them. The character relationships in debut novel FEVER are slightly confusing. Fontana is obviously a criminal, but it seems he went to jail in order to protect Shannon -- in a sense. Fontana attempts to make Shannon feel guilty with stories of the horrors he endured in jail, although he does not spell out all of the obvious conclusions. I do not want to go into too much detail about these conclusions and risk spoiling the book, but they are obvious once the book is finished. Then once Fontana gets Shannon to do what he wants him to, he stops trying to torture Shannon with the past and treats him as an equal. On the other side of the equation is Shannon. While he does some soul searching he has no real sense of guilt, nor does his character seem to have that much depth. Luckily, the story is more about Fontana than Shannon even though the book follows Shannon's character. To be completely honest, I have not completely made up my mind about this book. The storyline itself is interesting -- the heist of a cruise ship would make a thrilling action adventure movie. I do have some problems with the character relationships and developments, although I think that this is due to my own personal preferences rather than a fault of the author. I believe my biggest problem with the book is that there is a lot of ugliness hiding under the surface of the story and the characters that is never broached or discussed. While this ugliness is hinted at, I would have liked all of the conclusions to be more explicated stated. This way I can have confirmation of some of my own theories and see if my view of the characters is in fact bleaker than what Rowe intended.
Reviewed by Sarah Dudley, September 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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