The Moonpool

From Publishers Weekly At the start of Deutermann's exciting third suspense novel to feature Cameron Richter, a retired cop who runs Hide and Seek Investigations, a PI firm staffed by other ex-cops (after Spider Mountain ), one of Cam's operatives, Allie Gardner, falls ill in Wilmington, N.C., while doing some philandering-husband divorce work. Soon she's dead on the floor of a gas station bathroom, burned from the inside out from having ingested a pint of highly radioactive water. When Cam looks into Allie's death, he winds up being hired by Aristotle Quartermain, chief of security at Helios, the local nuclear power station. Aiding Cam are the book's two most appealing characters, his German shepherds, Frick and Frack. Deutermann imparts much interesting scientific information on such things as the titular moonpool, where exhausted nuclear fuel is stored. Just as interesting, and far more chilling, is the author's depiction of how the Department of Homeland Security operates and why you never, ever want to get on their bad side. Thriller fans will look forward to further entries in this fine series. (_May)_ Copyright В© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist With Spider Mountain (2007), Deutermann turned from Clancy-like military thrillers to a series starring North Carolina freelance investigator Cam Richter. This time a seemingly simple case turns ominous when one of RichterвЂTMs team dies of radiation poisoning, and the source appears to be the nearby Helios nuclear power plant. Even the power of the FBI and CIA canвЂTMt stop Richter from trying to discover the truth. Digging deeper, he uncovers a terrorist plot to release the water from the plantвЂTMs “moonpool,” the radioactive storage pond that cools the spent reactor fuel, thus creating a disaster similar to Chernobyl. Can Richter find the murderer and stop the catastrophe? The inner workings of a nuclear power plant are revealed in elaborate detail here, slowing down the pace dramatically, at the expense of both the characters and the story. Still, fans of the first Richter novel will want to stick with the series a little longer before pulling up stakes. --Jeff Ayers