Resurrection Day

Brendan DuBois

Average Rating 7/10 (1 Review)

What if the Cuban Missile Crisis had become a full-blown atomic war?

The place is Boston. The year is 1972. It has been ten years since bombs fell over major cities in the United States and the Soviet Union. Russia is decimated. California is virtually destroyed. Washington D.C. lies beneath a giant crater lake. President Kennedy, Vice President Johnson and their families have disappeared, believed dead. "The best and brightest" of their administration are disgraced or in hiding.

America is a shell of her former glory, a second rate power dependent upon the kindness of Britain. Martial law rules.

Carl Landry. a young reporter with The Boston Globe, arrives at the scene of a murder. A friendless man, a veteran of the '62 war, has been shot, but Landry begins to doubt he is the victim of a burglary gone wrong and suspects that the man has taken secrets to his grave.

What was this man doing in the War Room of the White House in October 1962? Who pushed the button that started the war? What is the legend and what is the lie? Who was the betrayer and who the betrayed?

And could John F. Kennedy by some miracle still be alive?

'DuBois has his finger right on the button in this thriller'

'This is a fascinating addition to the world of "what if" fiction'

Review by Chrissi (300401) Rating (7/10)

Review by Chrissi
Rating 7/10
Resurrection Day is about what might have happened if the Cuban Missile Crisis had actually spilled over into a global nuclear conflict. The subject matter is not my usual choice, as you may know, but this one has a twist to it.

America was decimated by the conflict, and the USSR was totally destroyed. The rest of the world have taken up positions as world leaders, leaving the United States almost back where they started as a colony under the support of the British. Unfortunately, the support of Britain is vital because the USA are the only country not to have disposed of their Nuclear Weapons, and so they are viewed with suspicion and fear by other nations.

The story is that of Carl Landry, a Veteran of the conflict who is now a Newspaper Reporter for the Boston Globe. Censorship is in place in America after the conflict, and a report by him about the murder of a fellow veteran is cut from the paper, leading him to investigate why. What he finds is much greater than he may have expected. It takes him away from Boston, with the aid of an English reporter from the Times, and to finding out what really happened to lead the world to War.

It is curious that outcomes to events are not necessarily the obvious ones. Here (although I am too young to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis) it seems to have been one of those incidents that really frightened people and made a mark on the minds of the populace.

It is referred to in The Hunt for Red October, and other books and films, and is all caught up with the age of the Kennedies and other so-called Statesmen, before they fell off their pedestal and before the world became so small as to be captured on a 20 inch screen.

I suppose that it was the first time for most people that the threat was really obvious, but a few years later, with generations having grown up with the concept of nuclear weapons, although they are still frightening, the fear is not something new, we just accept them because they have always been there.

Anyway, the story is a thriller, with Carl trying to find out what happened to the one Veteran, and getting pulled into a conspiracy where he has to find the answers in order to save his own life. It is well written, if a bit slow in places, but the sheer volume of research must have been frightening. It is a great idea, one that will appeal to both post-apocalyptic fans and thriller fans alike. I enjoyed it, although it may possibly carry greater weight to an American reader.
Chrissi ( 30th April 2001)