Cosmosis

Rey (Day of the Dove) hits most of the genre clichés in this tepid thriller. A dramatic prologue, set in 1993, details the murder of NASA’s Arthur Kelton in Alabama by an unnamed killer who was seeking photographs from a Mars mission. In the present, Kelton’s insurance safety consultant son, Jace, is obsessed with learning the truth about his father’s death, which may be linked to speculation that the government suppressed the truth about what was found on the red planet. Eventually, Jace crosses paths with high-cheek-boned country girl Madison Marro, whose scientist uncle Jace attempted to meet at a conference in Vancouver, B.C. Unfortunately, someone fatally attacked the uncle, but Jace was able to catch his dying words: “Tell Maddy… NASA… the stone.” Once Madison gets past her initial belief that Jace killed her uncle, their relationship develops exactly as most readers will expect. Pedestrian prose doesn’t help (e.g., “Like enraged Titans, the sea and the wind had declared war on the oil rig”). (Nov.)