Deadly Echoes

Donlay demonstrates a fine grasp of action-thriller boilerplate in his fourth Donovan Nash thriller (after 2013’s Zero Separation). A string of brutal murders, artfully shot on video and posted to YouTube, appears to signal the transition of the ecology-minded Eco-Watch organization from activism and research to outright terrorism. In fact, it marks the start of a campaign of violent revenge against Nash, engineered by the obsessive Garrick Pearce, the founder of a militant group of eco-terrorists in the 1980s, who blames Nash for first stealing and then killing the love of his life, conservationist Meredith Barnes. After targeting Nash’s organization, his friends, and his family, Pearce performs a final act of operatic malevolence—a grand drama of environmental defilement whose effects may last centuries. On occasion, Donlay rises above genre cliché, as in his portrait of Nash’s estranged wife, Lauren, who faces adversity with a steady resolve that makes her a more interesting figure than her husband. Agent: Kimberley Cameron, Kimberley Cameron Associates. (Apr.)