Day Seven

Bickham's Twister was praised as an accurate evocation of the '70s, and his latest is a crackling high-tech contemporary a stirring last-page finale. American and Soviet space scientists are racing to establish a crew on the surface of Mars to check out a recently discovered beacon signal, while Europeans are launching a robot investigator, and religious fanatics around the world are uniting in opposition to both missions. Into this maelstrom plunges psychiatrist Richard Hart, whose daughter Christie is a member of the U.S. Adventurer team. Hart is privately treating Davidson Myrick, chief of NASA's crew training, who is close to a breakdown. Then Myrick dies, apparently a suicide, and Hart's secretary is murdered in a break-in. When the Russian mission ends in tragedy, Hart becomes convinced that the Americans are next and that a conspiracy of unknown origin is determined to bring both superpowers to their knees. Hart realizes that somehow he holds the key to what is going on, and when several attempts are made on his life, Hart uncomfortably allies himself with detective Bud Slagerfeldt not only to save the American mission, but, it turns out, his daughter's life. (July)