Lucifer's Ark

From Publishers Weekly Horrormeister Clark (London Under Midnight) outdoes himself in outrageousness in this suspense shocker about a ship under bloody siege by both psychopathic criminals and marauding mercenaries. On Christmas Eve, the Volsparr makes one of its regular voyages across the Baltic Sea, carrying passengers to loved ones in a Russian mining town as well as a tool crucial for maintaining a British mining corporation's lucrative contract there. Unknown to all but a few crew members, the ship is also transporting 10 homicidal maniacs imprisoned in its hold. When a team of hired paramilitary pirates storms the ship, the prisoners are accidentally released and the passengers and crew become collateral damage as the mercenaries and murderers fight for control of the ship. Though his tale has intriguing possibilities, Clark throws out one absurd plot twist after another to ramp up the thrills, and then plunges it into a bloodbath of torture and gratuitously brutal violence in the second half. Even the most strong-stomached fans of his supernatural horror novels may find this excursion into thriller territory too over-the-top for its own good. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From