Level 26: Dark Origins

Anthony E. Zuiker is the creator of CSI, a show I love. I knew what to expect going in: lots of blood, gore, some forensics, some psychological thrills. I wanted a quick read on the beach, something fluffy and engaging, and that's exactly what I got. I loved it! Is it realistic? Hell, no! But it's a great story, with a truly heinous villain and a hero I loved rooting for. A fast-paced thriller that never lets up. The ending is both horrifying and touching, and it left me eager for the next book in the series. (A )

If you are looking for a fast-paced, graphic thriller, then you might love this book. If you are looking for character depth and believability, I would not recommend this one.

I had several problems with this story. The main character, Steve Dark, is fairly young with a pregnant wife. They live in a million dollar home with no financial worries, yet neither of them appear to work. Sqweegel, the serial killer, also has total financial independence. We are never given explanations for how any of them live so well without ever working.

I felt Sqweegel's character was far too superhuman. He is omniscient, able to know everything and sneak everywhere without ever once slipping up even a tiny bit. He has access to all sorts of technology and, show more apparently, is able to easily infiltrate the lives of high ranking government officials. None of this is ever explained.

There are other aspects I thought were too convenient for the story or too over-the-top. I won't name them all because that would give away too much of the story.

This book offers little in the way of hope and pretty much no happiness. It is nonstop action, graphic violence, and emotional turmoil. The end leaves us hanging, nudging us on to book two in the series. show less

Just adding on to Bridget's review. At first I did not like stopping my reading to go to the computer and watch the video clip, because I am used to getting comfortable when I read, and do not like to be disturbed. I even waited for two or three extra chapters to watch the clips, before I started watching them each time. They really did help to visualize what was happening. This book plays with the mind. Watching the movements of Sqweegel made me think of a snake, as he slithers, and he crawls down the hallway on his hands and feet. Wearing a white body suit, so no DNA is left behind, he leans over the unconscious victim and twists and cranes his neck and head in every direction as though he is playing with them. There is no fun in his show more games! The man who plays Sqweegel in the clips is a real contortionist, and does all the actions himself. Remarkable!
For several days after I read the book I would see a small space, maybe the opening to the attic, or under the kitchen sink, or even smaller spaces,and think, "I bet Sqweegle could hide in there". I wasn't really scared, but when going from the bathroom back to the bedroom at night, I did walk a little faster than usual! If I had to sum it up in one word, I would say, "HOLY COW". I guess that is two words though. Chills! Enjoy! show less

There is a master serial killer on the loose code-named Sqweegel(!). He has never left any speck of evidence because he wears a full body, latex ‘murder suit’. Steve Dark, a retired federal agent (retired due to his previous run-in with Sqweegel) is forced out of retirement to investigate.

Level 26: Dark Origins is the first novel in a proposed trilogy. Conceived by CSI creator Anthony Zuiker and written by comics author Duane Swierczynski, it is calling itself the world's first digi-novel(tm). What that means to you is that every twenty-pages or so there will be a web-link. Going to that link will result in a short film clip. I didn't feel like providing my email address to sign up to the site, so I have not watched the clips show more myself. They are not necessary to follow the novel anyway.

The writing is smooth as silk. I read fifty-six pages on my first go. Any time I would sit down with the book, twenty pages minimum would zip by. The style used was so easy-going, I felt like I was speed reading. This might sound like a knock, but considering what the book was designed for, I feel like that was a real accomplishment. In fact, I had a large number of problems with the book (see below) but the flow of the writing is what kept me from just abandoning it.

As fast paced entertainment, the book works. But if you give things even a moment's thought, it collapses. Dark is a retired federal agent, his wife is never shown to be employed at all. Yet they live in a million dollar Malibu beach home filled with designer items. How? Dark's old boss is forced to recruit Dark under a literal threat of death. Why? This just seemed ridiculous and didn't add anything to the story. It seemed like lazy storytelling to me. Like a ticking bomb was easier to use than characterization.

The characters are too flat to empathize with much, the seemingly psychotic Secretary of Defense feels pointless and over the top and the killer doesn't have enough background provided to make him interesting and seems too comic-booky supervillain. All of this together makes it awfully difficult to suspend my disbelief enough to really get into the story. There's nothing here that hasn't been done a million times before, and done better.

And that I guess is my real problem with the book. It is so obviously a product. I didn't so much get the feeling that Anthony Zuiker had a really good story idea that he just wanted to get out there. Instead I got the feeling that he had an 'entertainment concept' and started putting that package together. The novel is only one part of it and I'd be willing to bet that Mr. Zuiker had no part in the writing of it. Duane Swierczynski (who, if this was a traditional novel should have his name displayed at the same size as his 'co-author') does a good enough job at keeping the story interesting and moving along at a whip-crack pace. But there's no passion to it. No quirk or idiosyncrasy that makes the book memorable. And the nick-name Sqweegel is just dumb, no matter how they try to explain it. show less

This serial killer thriller was billed as the first interactive, “digi-novel,” which means that every couple chapters, the reader is told to log onto a website and watch a short video clip. Is this the future of the book? I doubt it. It’s a fun thriller, even though it’s a bit more run-of-the-mill than its authors would like us to believe.

Some plot spoilers follow (though I promise not to ruin the book for you).

There’s a secret government agency that hunts serial killers and has created a taxonomy of murderers, with twenty-five levels. Amateurs like Son of Sam and John Wayne Gacy are rated at a mere Level 12 or 15. However, there’s a serial killer they call Sqweegel who is off-the-charts evil and has been rated a Level 26. show more He’s been quiescent for a while, but he’s back with a vengeance, and a retired, psychologically-damaged serial killer hunter named Steve Dark (yes, the names are a bit silly, why do you ask?) who is forced to help catch Sqweegel once and for all. Oh and of course, Sqweegel does his best to torment Dark and his family (what’s left of them; Sqweegel has killed most of Dark’s relatives before the book even began). There are plenty of plot twists and turns, and Zuiker and Swierczynski don’t pull any punches. This is a brutal story, even moreso than I ha expected when I began reading. If you’re at all squeamish about mixtures of sex and violence, avoid this one.

I must address the digital component of the book, because it’s such an integral part of the story and because it’s really the one thing that sets the book apart from dozens if not hundreds of similar thrillers. Here’s my biggest complaint about the supplemental videos: there were just too darn many of them. Twenty total, which meant that they came roughly every twenty pages, and the book had pretty big print, so I would have to stop reading, get up, go to my computer, load and watch a video every few minutes. More often than not, I found myself setting the book down when I hit the next video and coming back to it later. The videos themselves weren’t bad – acting was generally if not universally decent, and from some cool character actors I like. One of the videos was surprisingly sexually explicit, which didn’t bother me, but it might some folks. The casting on a couple parts was questionable: the lead male actor wasn’t believable as Steve Dark (he was played by a scrawny hipster type with a little tiny ponytail) and despite that Dark’s wife was supposed to be white (noted explicitly in the text and on a medical form in one of the videos), she was played by a light-skinned African American woman. I guess my biggest complaints about the videos themselves (other than their frequency) was that most were superfluous, showing action that could have been easily described in the text, and that they weren’t actually supplemental to the text – they often reveal, literally, “what happens next” in the story. So while some of the videos were pointless, the reader absolutely cannot skip any of the videos or the following chapter wouldn’t make much sense. I will say that the videos were critically important for one reason: they show how Sqweegel moves (imagine a psychotic contortionist in a head-to-toe white latex catsuit). Without seeing him in action, he wouldn’t have been half as creepy, so from that perspective, the videos were a valuable addition, but I certainly didn’t need twenty of them.

Ultimately, I give this one 3.5 stars out of 5. At its heart, this is a more or less traditional maverick serial killer hunter vs. an over-the-top serial killer. We’ve all seen this before, and if you’ve read one, you’ve basically read them all. Yes, Sqweegel is even more over-the-top than most serial killers (some of the stuff he does really is horrific), and the videos are an interesting touch, but they do little more than obfuscate the fact that this is a simple, familiar tale. It’s certainly not bad by any means, but it’s nothing earth-shattering either. There are two follow-ons (the third volume has not yet been released), and I’m curious enough how it turns out that I will probably pick up the second book in the trilogy, but I’m in no rush.

Review copyright 2011 J. Andrew Byers show less

The concept of a combo videoclip/paper book is very cool. And for the first couple chapters, I was quite interested in the blend, and the videos, and the story.

Then... the videos turned into some adolescent nightmare/fantasy - starting with a "sex" scene in video form (which was completely out-of-place with the storyline but might make great titillation for 14 year old boys). I watched a couple more clips after that but it was just some body-actor slinking around - which was cool, but made the story more "comic-like" and less adult. (i.e. a serial killer who is supposed to be the best of the best isn't going to waste energy walking on all fours like a spider... there would be no point, other than making the video clip creep out someone show more (a 14 year old).

So, back to the plot... err... was there a plot? This super duper bad guy couldn't be caught by anyone other than Dark so the govt threatens to kill his friend if he didn't help. So he helps and the govt all of a sudden decides to kill him because he wasn't finding the bad guy fast enough. Oh, I see, only one guy can find him, so you try to kill him because he hasn't found him yet. Logical.

That's the problem with this book - it's not logical. The super duper bad guy is supposed to be impossible to catch and yet they catch him without much trouble (several different mistakes lead them to him). He gets to kill and maim and have dead bodies/parts and fecal matter everywhere in his home(s) and nobody noticed for years? Yeah, sorry, the serial killers who are good enough to get away with stuff for years are ones who are mainly "normal". Living in fecal matter or body parts... that's not normal.

And the ending/epilogue is just plain stupid.

It's worth a 3 only for its originality of blended mediums. show less

In the opening book of a series, authors Anthony E. Zuiker (creator of "CSI") and Duane Swierczynski create a "Criminal Minds"-type world led by investigator Steve Dark, one of the few men in law enforcement with success against the world's deadliest serial killers. In this case, Dark searches for a Level 26 madman (Level 26 representing the highest level of serial killers) known as Sqweegel. And, while the Sqweegel character is a little too omnipresent to be completely believable, there's no disputing the level of action, violence, and suspense that is created in this novel. Dark nearly caught Sqweegel years before in Rome, but the murderer evaded capture and went dormant for a few years. In this book, Sqweegel returns with a vengeance show more to threaten Dark, his wife, and their unborn child.

Fans of the aforementioned television series who aren't unnerved by some hard-core violent and uncomfortable passages will certainly enjoy Dark Origins - Level 26. show less