The Uninvited

Starred review from October 1, 2012
An epidemic outbreak of corporate sabotage and murderous children fuels this cerebral thriller from English writer Jensen (The Rapture). Hired to find an explanation for the chaos is Phipps & Wexman, the multinational legal firm that employs Hesketh Lock as a “cross-culture specialist.” In an unusual twist, Hesketh is an anthropologist whose Asperger syndrome allows him to study human behavior at a remove (and ends most of his romantic relationships almost before they begin). The saboteurs, it turns out, are all employees trying to bring down their own corporations: in Taiwan, one blows the whistle on an illegal-logging coverup; another, in Sweden, fouls a deal in coffee futures, costing his bank millions; and in Dubai, an employee of a multinational construction company alters figures and “screws up his company’s business across five continents.” Each saboteur commits suicide under baffling circumstances, but it’s not until Dubai, where Hesketh witnesses a man’s “surprisingly elegant” suicide when a small, ragged child appears, that he begins to see connections. Hesketh gradually discovers that the children constitute a tribe of sorts, with a “group consciousness” and their own language. They also have a mysterious craving for salt, as do the saboteurs. All of this has global ramifications, ratcheting up the suspense as the narrative picks up speed. Complementing the larger investigation is Hesketh’s relationship to his beloved stepson, who has attempted to kill his mother. Are the children genetic “mutants”? Have they come from the future to wreak havoc? Jensen never says, and her denouement is eerie and foreboding, leaving unanswered as many questions as it addresses. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Associates.

November 15, 2012
The children have turned murderous and the adults become suicidal saboteurs in Jensen's (The Rapture, 2009, etc.) compelling apocalyptic literary thriller. U.K.-based Hesketh Lock may be both a babe magnet and an outstanding behavioral pattern expert, but he's a man slightly at odds with the world or even a "robot made of meat," according to his ex-girlfriend, Kaitlin. Hesketh has Asperger's syndrome, which makes him both brilliantly focused and obsessive (he collects paint charts and does mental origami), as well as lousy at relationships. When a pandemic of economic and social destruction breaks out--young children killing family members; adults wreaking economic sabotage and then killing themselves--Hesketh is invited to join the team trying to understand and stop the mayhem. But events become personal when Kaitlin's son Freddy, whom Hesketh came to love and now misses badly, causes his mother's death. Freddy has become one of the wild children, and Hesketh must step in to parent him, while also observing firsthand this frightening new tribe of feral, self-sufficient primitives. As social order breaks down, Hesketh tries to piece together what is happening and where it will lead--a future in which the children respond to the damage caused by their parents. An intricate, intelligent, nightmarish eco-prophecy delivered in pacey fictional form.

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October 15, 2012

Hesketh Lock, the main character in Jensen's (The Rapture) atmospheric new thriller, is an unlikely hero. Lock, an anthropologist who works for a multinational company that investigates corporate fraud, has Asperger's syndrome. While his analytical mind makes him a valued investigator, he has trouble making eye contact or sharing emotions, and in times of stress he is likely to cope by constructing elaborate origami creatures in his mind. When Lock begins investigating a string of corporate sabotages afflicting companies around the globe, he notices startling parallels between both the events themselves and the saboteurs involved. At the same time, a shocking epidemic of violence by children is on the rise, threatening social structures on a wide scale as well as Lock's own fatherly relationship with the son of his former lover. VERDICT Jensen creates a wholly original character in Hesketh Lock while building a spooky, foreboding landscape where children can't be trusted, free will is under siege, and the line separating past, present, and future are not as finite as one might think. Part sf, part thriller, and totally eerie, this is recommended for readers who enjoy dystopian tales, thrillers, and sf.--Amy Hoseth, Colorado State Univ. Lib., Fort Collins

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