Take heed, Readers, from the very first sentence in THE
GONE WORLD to its astonishing conclusion, you will never
ever be able to think of time, space, and future the
same way again!
Judging from its cover, I thought THE GONE WORLD would
be a captivating and intriguing murder mystery, so I was
not prepared for how much of a mind-altering reading
experience it would prove to be. I could barely put the
novel down! It is incredibly vivid, at times brutal, in
its imagery and futuristic concepts covered in the
multi-layered plot and multi-layered story. Strong
images still linger like glass shards in my brain even
days after reading it as if wanting to be delicately
touched and pondered over.
In 1997, Special Agent Shannon Moss of the Naval Criminal
Investigative Service (NCIS) has a position that allows
her to investigate any criminal activity that involves
members of the American Navy or Marines. Shannon is
highly intelligent, physically fit, and able to move very
well, despite her prosthesis on her leg. She is highly
regarded for her investigative work in this role as well
as for her top secret and highly classified role in two
specialized dark operations called "Deep Waters" and "Deep
Time."
It is late at night and Shannon gets a call from FBI
Special Agent Philip Nestor. He is investigating the
murder of a Navy SEAL's family and they can't find him or
his missing daughter. In a strange twist of fate, the
massacre of the family happens in the same house as that
of her childhood friend, Courtney Gimm, who had been
murdered as a teenager. Patrick Mursult, the missing
SEAL also had been part of the Deep Waters program. What
had he seen? Who is after him? Why is it so important that
his whole family was massacred? Will Shannon be able to
cope with what evil she may encounter? What will happen
to her?
Tom Sweterlitsch, author of THE GONE WORLD, has a very
impressive background in a number of areas, including
working at the Carnegie Library for the Blind and
Physically Handicapped. This experience makes this novel so
realistic in its detail, especially in descriptions of
how Shannon lost part of her leg to her daily care
routines so that she can stay so active.
Sweterlitsch has a tremendous understanding of technology
and knows how to convey that information to his readers
in an exciting and easy to understand manner.
Sweterlitsch's THE GONE WORLD is highly original and so
breathless in scope as it moves back and forth across
time and space and future possibilities. It is a
brilliant kaleidoscope of sci-fi and police procedural
that shift and change to bring in new mysteries while
solving others. I kept thinking to myself that this book
just has to be made into a dramatic movie, so I was not
surprised to learn that Neill Blomkamp will be
directing it as a sci-fi thriller. It will be so
awesome to see how the Terminus of Humanity that Shannon
sees in 1997 get depicted. It is so shocking and scary!
THE GONE WORLD is so fantastic and futuristic that it
definitely will appeal to fans across many genres who
like high stakes action and brilliant writing!
Sweterlitsch takes you on a high tension ride far
beyond any earth bound imagination! So, grab a copy of
THE GONE WORLD and get locked in for action for the most
amazing murder investigation and adventures in future
trajectories! You will be glad you discovered THE GONE
WORLD!
Shannon Moss is part of a clandestine division within the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. In western Pennsylvania, 1997, she is assigned to solve the murder of a Navy SEAL’s family—and to locate his vanished teenage daughter. Though she can’t share the information with conventional law enforcement, Moss discovers that the missing SEAL was an astronaut aboard the spaceship U.S.S. Libra—a ship assumed lost to the currents of Deep Time. Moss knows first-hand the mental trauma of time-travel and believes the SEAL’s experience with the future has triggered this violence. Determined to find the missing girl and driven by a troubling connection from her own past, Moss travels ahead in time to explore possible versions of the future, seeking evidence to crack the present-day case. To her horror, the future reveals that it’s not only the fate of a family that hinges on her work, for what she witnesses rising over time’s horizon and hurtling toward the present is the Terminus: the terrifying and cataclysmic end of humanity itself. Luminous and unsettling, The Gone World bristles with world-shattering ideas yet remains at its heart an intensely human story.