Resurrection Day -- a novel by Brendan DuBois. Critical reviews of Resurrection Day.

"Resurrection Day by New Hampshire writer Brendan DuBois is a gripping thriller that explores several "what if" scenarios. What is the Cuban missile crisis had erupted into nuclear war between the United States and the U.S.S.R.?

And what if in 1972, 10 years after the disaster that left both nations devastated, a reporter stumbled upon evidence that John F. Kennedy had not died during the war as previously thought? A clever premise and interesting characters make this one a page turner."

-- The Boston Sunday Herald, Sunday, July 11

"I tend to shy away from stories that use a what-if approach to history as their plot conceits. It is a hard act to pull off.

The last well-done example of this plot device was in Robert Harris' Fatherland, wherein Nazi Germany had actually won World War II. With Resurrection Day, I'm going to have to revise my views. DuBois' story is a chilling realized look at what might have happened if the Soviets had not backed down during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

The tale takes place in 1972, ten years after the Soviet Union has been reduced to radioactive rubble and the United States is a weak and wounded nation being supported by its European friends. President Kennedy is believed to have been killed during the war, and a bitter populace vilifies his image.

In Boston, a reporter named Carl Landry finds himself at a murder scene. A veteran of the '62 war has been murdered in his bed. It turns out that the victim is the keeper of incredible secrets about the origin of the war and the disappearance of the president. They are secrets that some are willing to kill to keep buried. With the help of an English journalist and the hindrance caused by his editor, Landry must backtrack along the dead man's path in search of answers.

DuBois has done an extraordinary job of envisioning a world that might have been. He also leaves the reader in the present wondering: What if?"

-- Peter Mergendahl, Denver Rocky Mountain News, July 4, 1999

"In his first novel outside of his acclaimed Lewis Cole mystery series (Shattered Shell, Forecasts, Feb. 15, etc.), DuBois delivers an alternate history thriller that deserves to be as popular as Robert Harris's Fatherland. DuBois postulates an America that has been politically devastated by a nuclear exchange arising from the Cuban missile crisis. It's now 1972, Washington, D.C. Is a radioactive crater, Nelson Rockefeller is running for president against George McGovern; and Boston Globe reporter Carl Landry is investigating the shooting death of a 60-year-old retired serviceman. Warned off the story after it gets spiked by the military's in house censor, and emboldened by Sandra Price, a beautiful reporter from the London Times, Landry keeps digging at Sawson's past. What he uncovers is the truth behind the rumors of what really happened in the White House as the missile crisis spun out of control--and evidence of an unholy alliance that is poised to reverse the course of American history. From cryptic references to post-bomb chaos in California to clever reworkings of '60's history (e.g., anti-draft demonstrators chanting, "Hell no, we won't glow!"), DuBois creates a sobering and imaginatively detailed vision of an America that has been crippled by tragedy--a nation where John F. Kennedy was not the King Arthur of Camelot, but its Mordred, the man who brought down everything. One of DuBois's many brilliant touches is an underground of diehard Kennedy supporters who scrawl the graffiti "He Lives" on every available surface, because they believe that JFK was not only innocent, but is still alive and broadcasting from a pirate radio station. Cohesively plotted and smoothly written, steadily exciting and rife with clever conceits, this is what-if thriller fiction at its finest."

-- Publisher's Weekly, May 17, 1999 (starred review)

"The problem with a lot of historical fiction -- especially novels like this one set in an "alternate history" -- is that characters tell each other things they should already know because the writers can't figure out less obvious ways to get important information to the reader. DuBois has neatly solved that and many other problems typical of the genre in this excellent thriller. It's set in an alternate 1972, 10 years after the Cuban missile crisis erupted into a full-blown war that destroyed much of the U.S. And the Soviet Union -- killing President Kennedy and Vice-President Johnson, causing massive and long-term power and food shortages, and forcing the U.S. to rely on British and Canadian aid for its very survival. At the center of the action is Carl Landry, a Boston Globe reporter whose investigation of an apparently unremarkable homicide lands him hip-deep in a conspiracy of almost unimaginably large proportions. Like the best alternate-history fiction (Robert Harris' Fatherland or the novels of Harry Turtledove), DuBois' tale is a feast for the mind, a what-if story that's so plausible it reads, at times, like nonfiction. In every way, this is a first rate novel and one that is sure to appeal to a wide variety of readers."

-- Booklist, April 15, 1999 (boxed, starred review)

"What if the Russians didn't blink in October of 1962? Brendan DuBois gives us the answer in RESURRECTION DAY, a smart, suspenseful thriller and a frighteningly believable piece of alternative history, too. You'll be shocked on every page by a world so familiar in its mundane details that the terrible changes seem commonplace. You'll be swept along on one man's search for the truth that may rescue what's left of America. And you won't want to put the book down till you see how it all turns out. Brendan DuBois is a fine writer at the top of his game."

-- William Martin, author of CITIZEN WASHINGTON and CAPE COD

"RESURRECTION DAY gives us a convincingly terrifying look at an alternative history that could easily have been ours. DuBois's careful research and dark imagination weave together a story you won't be able to put down -- and one that you'll be grateful is only fiction."

-- S.J. Rozan, Winner of the Shamus and Anthony awards, author of A BITTER FEAST

"RESURRECTION DAY is one of those rare books that you truly lose yourself in. The 'alternative history' aspect is fascinating, and the suspense story that drives the book never flags. But it's the people who make it most memorable of all. Brendan DuBois has written a masterpiece of clever and cunning political fiction."

-- Ed Gorman, author of MYSTERY SCENE

"Brendan DuBois has always been a terrific writer and an imaginative story teller. I expected a good book. But RESURRECTION DAY blew me away. It's clever and gripping and scary as hell. Don't say I didn't warn you."

-- William G. Tapply, author of MUSCLE MEMORY

"I defy any baby-boomer in America to read the prologue of RESURRECTION DAY and then put the book down for the night. Brendan DuBois has written a magnificent nightmare of what-might-have-been, with details so chillingly 'real' that you wonder if the last thirty years actually happened as you remember them. This stunning novel truly delivers on the promise of its arresting title, and if RESURRECTION DAY doesn't make every bestseller list in the known world, its author will forever drink for free on me."

-- Jeremiah Healy, author of SPIRAL and THE STALKING OF SHEILA QUINN

"The best 'what if' novel for years - cleverer and more resonant than Robert Harris' FATHERLAND - and all the more scary because it was minutes away from happening for real. Add in a plot with more twists and turns than the abandoned streets of Manhattan, and you've got a book you'll read three times and keep on your shelves forever."

-- Lee Child, author of KILLING FLOOR and DIE TRYING:

"Set within a mystery-adventure framework, RESURRECTION DAY is a thought-provoking yet entertaining piece of Cold War "counterfactual history"--a fantasy of how the world might look if the Cuban missile crisis had escalated to nuclear war. It should make us even more grateful for our narrow escape of 1962."

-- Bernard A Weisberger, author of COLD WAR, COLD PEACE

"Sometimes it's rewarding to just let your hair down and read a book that grabs you by the sheer power of its storytelling. There is no need to look for subtext; what you see is what you get. Such books often are called page-turners, and Brendan DuBois' new novel, "Resurrection Day," fits the bill.

"Resurrection Day" is tailor-made for baby boomers who recall the heady days of Camelot when John F. Kennedy and his "best and brightest" were in control of the government. It was also the days of Conelrad warnings, when many of us spent time under our desks in school practicing what we would do if the Russians dropped the big one on us.

Unresolved crisis
It was a time of paranoia, when families installed fallout shelters in their backyards. It was the time of the Cuban missile crisis, when the Russians had the audacity to install offensive missiles in Cuba and the world was on the brink of nuclear winter.

DuBois offers a what-if scenario that carries the outcome of the crisis to its opposite conclusion. "Resurrection Day" is set in 1972, a decade after the crisis, and several U.S. cities (New York, Omaha, Miami, San Diego and Washington, D.C.) are craters, the result of nuclear bombs dropped by Soviet planes. In retaliation, the United States has devastated Russia to the point that it no longer exists. Millions have perished in both countries.

Plot thickens
The entire Kennedy administration is either dead or in hiding, and the country has been under martial law for 10 years. Large areas around the bombed-out cities are restricted zones, patrolled by the military, where civilians are not allowed. The news media are censored.

America is reduced to a Third World country, surviving largely due to the largess of the British. It's a pretty bleak world. Enter Carl Landry, a former Green Beret soldier who was in Vietnam as an adviser when the war broke out. After serving for a time trying to rein in the chaos after the California bombing, he has been working for several years as a reporter for the Boston Globe.

Landry doesn't think much of the haggard old man who approaches him on the street with "a story." When the man is found murdered in his apartment, though, Carl has reason to believe that the man, who was once an adviser to Kennedy and who was in the War Room when the war broke out, had secrets that some very powerful people are willing to kill to keep quiet. The race is on to find the secrets, with the American military, the British intelligence service and military and Landry all in the hunt. The search takes the reader on a wild ride to Manhattan where an underground (literally) community of people who survived the bombing have lived for 10 years despite the area being declared off-limits by the authorities. DuBois has a grand time taking the reader on this ride. He mixes fact with fiction with a deft touch, taking real characters such as George McGovern, Nelson Rockefeller and all the names from the Kennedy years - Robert McNamara, Lyndon Johnson, Dean Rusk and more - to add verisimilitude to his story.

His love affair between Carl and Sandy Page, a reporter for the Times of London, who isn't all she seems to be, adds just the right human touch.

In "Resurrection Day," DuBois has crafted a thriller with punch, one you won't want to put down, a real page-turner."

-- Tom Walker, Denver Post, Sunday, July 11th

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