Michael Crichton & James Patterson

Fiction 2024 | 424 pages

Mauna Loa on the Big Island was about to erupt.  John MacGregor, the geologist  in charge of the Hawaii Volcano Observatory has a big job ahead of him; to keep the residents of Hilo and other Hawaiian towns safe.  With the current technology (it is April 2025 in our book) Mac knows the eruption will happen in 114 hours.  But he is unwilling to start a panic and, in his press conference, tells people it will erupt "within two weeks."

But soon General Rivers arrives on behalf of the military, and we learn that the eruption of Mauna Loa is not the only problem, nor the biggest one.  The horrendous problem is the extremely toxic waste buried deep in the mountain that will destroy the earth, not just the Big Island, if it is released.  And the glass containers holding the toxic chemicals are so old, they are cracking and covered with fissures.

Eruption is a great thriller!  No one is murdered or gets shot.  It is a thriller based on a potentially huge natural (and unnatural) disaster.  It is gripping, a cliff hanger, an edge-of-your-seat read.

There are many reviewers who did not like this book.  Mostly, they seem disappointed with Sherri, Michael Crichton's wife, who selected James Patterson to finish this thriller that Crichton started before he died.  They feel Patterson does not have the skills to live up to Crichton's scientific knowledge and, therefore, dumbed down what this book might have been.

I decided to stay out of that fray completely, since I know neither Crichton's nor Patterson's writing that well, though I have read both of them.  I decided just to take this book at face value, for what was ultimately published.  And I believe what is published is an engaging, thought-provoking masterpiece of a thriller. I recommend it.

January 2025