When Lewis was busy researching what would become The Big Short, he ran across a Dallas investor who seemed so outlandish that Lewis brushed him off. Governments, the guy told him, would be the next domino to fall due to the economic crisis. But this idea seemed so absurd as to likely be false that Lewis gave it little other thought, until it looked like governments were going to fail. And since he already had that good good background in his pocket from The Big Short, he was able to continue to watch the fallout through governments.
Boomerang is a short little book that details big fiscal failure. Starting in Iceland where a lot of fishermen decided to try their hand as investment brokers, through Greece where austerity measures were crippling the bribery economy, to Ireland, Germany and finally California, Lewis finds a culture of easy money and the governments that spent it.
The details are sad and overwhelming. How can governments behave so badly? How can the outspend so richly? How can they possibly not see this as a problem? Turns out governments were having a grand time bailing out banks who had made monumentally stupid gambles and passing that cost on to their citizens. But, to try to write of an entire national character based on a couple weeks of travel with carefully selected citizens may be a bit of a stretch and obviously unfair to the entire populace of these countries.
Frustrating and full of gallows type humor, Boomerang made me feel that absolutely no one is minding the store. And we're all doomed.
3.5/5.
Meticulously researched and well written. Mira Grant's second installment in the Newsflesh Trilogy doesn't disappoint, even if it does feel sometimes like it's the middle book treading water until the ultimate finish. Deadline continues where Feed left off (you can read that review here) - Georgia and Shaun Mason, brother and sister news team followed the presidential campaign of Senator Ryman to the nominating convention, only to have Georgia killed by a vast conspiracy which included Gov. Tate, the other possible candidate. Tate dies at the hands of Shaun without giving up the head of the conspiracy and Shaun vows to track down those responsible for Georgia's death. You see, a freak accident explained in exquisite detail in the first book, caused two viruses to combine to create a super virus that redirects the body'd energy into becoming a shambling infected vessel determined to infect or eat any living thing. Yay. Deadline picks up a year after those events with Shaun as our new narrator. I have to say, I miss Georgia. She was analytical and wry. Shaun's great, but he's no substitute, the fact that Mira Grant has written him to be aware of this drawback is next level aware and I appreciated it. To deal with the trauma of losing his sister, the only person he's ever loved, he latches onto a non-corporeal (not literally) Georgia, who speaks to only him. The rest of the team just rolls with it and it only occasionally becomes a concern. In any case, the conspiracy starts rolling once a CDC doctor winds up at Shaun's Oakland apartment, claiming she has some secret information to deliver. While she is delivering the message, a massive outbreak occurs and the team is running for their lives to evacuate the city before it is "cleansed" in a massive fireball. The information the doctor shares is that individuals with dormant virus conditions are dying at disproportionate rates to the rest of the country. In this world that means these people, like Georgia, are being targeted. In his quest for answers, Shaun unveils even more secrets that dwell right in the heart of the CDC. But a massive outbreak suggests a terrifying evolution in the disease. The action in this book was more subdued than the last time as the characters aren't moving around quite as much and the book lulled in moments where the main focus was setting up events for the conclusion in book three, but the book took the time to lay it all out and I'm sure book three is going to be a great conclusion. It's hard for the second book in a trilogy to outshine it's predecessor and Deadline is no exception. But the cliffhanger ending and the revelations added excitement of their own and made Deadline an enjoyable read. This is a must-read for anyone into the Zombie genre.
4/5 Stars.
