Things aren't what they seem in the supposedly idyllic state of Prospera. Cronin's latest takes place in Prospera, an archipelago state that "exists in splendid isolation, hidden from the world." The main island is designed to be something of a paradise, "free of all want and distraction," where residents are urged to pursue art and personal betterment. The Annex, another island, is "home to the support staff--men and women of lesser biological and social endowments." Proctor Bennett lives on the main island and works as a "ferryman"--when his fellow residents become older or infirm, he escorts them to a boat that will carry them to the "Nursery Isle," where they are reborn as teenagers who will then rejoin Prospera. One day, Proctor learns that the next person he's in charge of ferrying is his father, and it turns out the old man doesn't go quietly--on the way to the pier, he begins muttering seemingly incomprehensible phrases, telling his son, "The world is not the world," and "You're not...you." Then things get even more complicated: Proctor meets art dealer Thea, who's tight with a group of dissatisfied Annex residents, and then he gets fired from his job, which leads him to believe Prospera might not be everything he's thought it was. He's also trying to navigate his increasingly rocky marriage to Elise, a fashion designer whose mother, Callista, is the chair of the Board of Overseers for All Prospera--"the boss of everything." The twists in this novel are plentiful and authentically surprising, and although there are tons of moving parts, Cronin does a wonderful job handling them. This is a dystopian novel that doubles as a detective story, and Proctor is an appealing protagonist, semi-hard-boiled but never descending into cliché. Cronin's prose is solid, and he handles the dialogue, sometimes leavened with humor, expertly. It's a hefty book that moves with an astounding quickness--yet another excellent offering from an author with a boundless imagination and talent to spare. Twisty, thrilling, and beautifully written. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Prospera is an idyllic archipelago state, hidden away and isolated from the outside world, a land of sunny skies, ocean breezes, and happiness that is measured by a number. After a long, fulfilling life, Prosperans are ferried off to the Nursery, an island where their memories are wiped and their bodies restored so that they start over with a clean slate. Proctor Bennett is a ferryman, but when he's called to ferry his father, his last, distraught words to him are that their world is not the world. Proctor's entire reality is shaken, and the utopia he thinks he lives in takes on a disturbing edge as it devolves into chaos and lunacy. Proctor grapples with an untethered existence, where reality has an ethereal quality that evokes a desperate need for the truth. The result is a page-turner that is impossible to put down. A profoundly genius culmination of every twisty event and unveiled secret caps off this mind-bending masterpiece. VERDICT The velvety prose, the creepy heart-clenching suspense, and the meaning and emotion layered into every word all give rise to an incredibly thought-provoking sci-fi thriller from Cronin (The City of Mirrors).--Andrea Dyba

Fans of the Passage series have been waiting for a new Cronin since 2016, and thankfully, it was worth it; he delivers a chilling, original, and immersive stand-alone sf tale perfectly rendered for our tumultuous times. Proctor Bennett lives on the island of Prospera, where everyone is protected from the horrors unfolding on the mainland. The people of Prospera are healthy and wealthy, everyone spends their time pursuing their passions, and when their time is up, they retire to the Nursery, an island where they are "reiterated," their minds erased before being reintroduced back into society. As the head "Ferryman," Proctor is in charge of this journey, until he is called to the home of his estranged father to facilitate a rare, forced retirement, at which point this unsettling and sinister dystopia begins to implode. At its heart, however, this is a novel about storytelling, a meticulously built tale that begs the reader to allow themselves to be swept away, greatly rewarding those who surrender and trust the designer to sail them to the finish. A great option for fans of the accessible, compelling, and thought- provoking sf of authors such as Blake Crouch, Cherie Dimaline, and Neal Stephenson.

Bestseller Cronin's first novel since his Passage trilogy is a fantastic extravaganza all its own, with a plot that hinges on unpredictable twists that run far ahead of reader expectations. Proctor Bennett, an elite resident of the socially regimented archipelago world of Prospera, works as a "ferryman," assisting aging fellow Prosperans to transition peacefully to their next "iteration," the reconstitution of their personalities in younger bodies. Proctor discharges his duties with great professionalism--until the ferrying of his own father goes dramatically awry, exposing cracks in Prospera's edenic veneer. Now a dangerous fugitive on the run from his own forced iteration, Proctor enters an unlikely alliance with rebellious subversives inhabiting the Annex, the island that is home to Prospera's disgruntled working class. Having established the foundations for what appears to be a classic dystopian tale, Cronin then pulls the rug out from under his story, audaciously expanding its scope far beyond the hermetic parameters that have shaped Proctor's account up to that point and pushing it into the realm of provocative conceptual science fiction. Cronin's firm command of the plot's sinuous dynamics, and his creation of believable characters shaped by well-wrought strengths and flaws, make this bold gesture work. The result is a sensational speculative tale that is sure to get people talking. Agent: Ellen Levine, Trident Media. (May)