Hollis
In 1937, Los Angeles is baking in a September heat wave. The citizens of the growing city, thirsty and on edge, are angry and desperate for water. They wait for the okay on a new dam project, though the water department’s chief engineer, Hollis, is caught up in solving a mystery first.
During the reign of the previous chief engineer, Hollis was one of hundreds of men working on the immense Van Der Lip Dam project. The dam’s collapse in the middle of the night unleashed raging flood waters that swept five hundred unsuspecting people to their deaths. While the tragedy was ruled an accident, and no one was ever charged, Hollis is uneasy. He’s haunted by the feeling that that the dam’s failure was not accidental, and he is unwilling to sign off on a new project without knowing the truth.
Assailed by recurring nightmares of drowning in a massive wall of water from which there is no escape, Hollis also receives death threats and warnings of reservoir bombings. He receives the brunt of the anger of farmers whose irrigation water is diverted to the city. Still, with all of this in the background, he undertakes an investigation that puts him in the political crosshairs, uncovering a conspiracy to further enrich those who are already wealthy and powerful. With millions of dollars at stake, and his own father-in-law as a major stakeholder, Hollis penetrates Los Angeles’s secret political and financial underworlds, putting his career, his family, and his life in jeopardy.
Unsettling, disturbing, and sobering in its depiction of dark powers manipulating and controlling the fates of nations, Hollis is a gripping novel whose unremarkable, brave hero puts everything on the line to prevent another tragedy.
Reviewed by
Kristine Morris
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