Chernobyl Murders

Beres's new thriller toys with the intriguing if implausible notion that the horrific meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, near Kiev, was no accident.In 1986, months before the meltdown, Mihaly Horvath, a senior engineer at the power plant, suspects that the facility is being intentionally overextended as part of a government experiment. When catastrophe strikes, Mihaly's detective brother, Lazlo, finds himself pursued by a psychotic and sadistic KGB major, Grigor Komarov, who hopes to establish that foreign elements, possibly linked to the CIA, were responsible. While the writing quality is a step up from Beres's last thriller, Final Stroke , many readers are likely to find neither the mystery of who caused the disaster nor the political intrigue sufficiently engaging. (June)