PLOTLINE

It starts with a series of unexplained events. Earth tremors across the globe. Women being driven insane by their heightened and scrambled senses. And the world is starting to notice - the number one Twitter trend is #realfemmefatales. Governments and scientists are bewildered and silent. The world needs Torchwood, but there's not much of Torchwood left. Captain Jack Harkness has tracked the problem to its source: a village in Peru, where he's uncovered evidence of alien involvement. In Cardiff, Gwen Cooper has discovered something alien and somehow connected to Jack. If the world is to be restored, she has to warn him - but she's quickly becoming a victim of the madness, too...

Released 11 October 2012 - Print and audiobook formats.

COMMENT

Disturbingly, TORCHWOOD - EXODUS CODE is addictive. Firstly, the novel was devoured like Captain Jack seducing his latest snared conquest with the subtly of a delirious ram in the Autumn (Fall) mating season, followed by the eight hour audiobook that gloriously seduced me like summer day’s picnic Ploughman’s Lunch and a freshly pulled pint of ale.

To be honest, prior to reading the novel, I was not expecting to be entertained, to the shocked, to laugh, to be informed as thoroughly as I eventually was. I kept thinking. “Well, it’s a book that John Barrowman has had his inferring mitts all over like a bad herpes infection rash!” and, therefore, insipid, irreverent, merging on the nauseous. How wrong I was.

Cleverly plotted, dynamically structured, reverential to not only the TORCHWOOD brand but to the DOCTOR WHO canon as well.

Co-authored by Carole Barrowman, TORCHWOOD – EXODUS CODE is truly imaginatively cinematic; a guaranteed ‘page-turner’ whose wit, challenging intelligence (at times, and it’s not detrimental to the product, it becomes and Anthropology & Humanities essay) and adult themes will reward your effort & time.

The only problem that I have is that with this review I do not want to reveal too much to spoil your (pending) enjoyment. So spoilers will be limited to what I would call ‘signposts’ as opposed to ‘reveals’.

Firstly, I should commend the audiobook (released by AUDIOGO in October 2012) format for being superbly produced & directed; reader/actor, Daniel Pirrie delivers a definitive tour de force, delineating each character with the deftness of a dragonfly’s beating wing in a head wind that is aurally pleasing, and no more so than his ‘performance’ of Harkness himself, that at times had you believing that Barrowman could not help himself and had infiltrated the recording booth to be the former Time Agent himself.

Surprisingly, overall, the reading is generously unhurried, thoughtful and pitches perfect. I would be encouraged if Pirrie is engaged by AUDIOGO commissioning editor to read exclusive audios from the DOCTOR WHO brand; he’s extraordinarily impressive.

So, what is EXODUS CODE all about?

Set after the incident known as the Miracle, flittering across time, as a Captain Jack story only could, it opens in 1930s Peru with our titular hero investigating intricate markings, three entwined circles, etched upon the country’s landscape. Naturally, these ‘hieroglyphs’ are central to the subsequently unfurling plot, and when he discovers that they have been inscribed on the arm of Torchwood colleague, Gwen Cooper, the issue becomes personal but when monumental fissures appear beneath the Earth’s oceans, venting a formerly harmless substance, pricking the water’s surface then the issue becomes international.

With a potential threat to not only his best friend but to the planet itself, Harkness faces his greatest challenge in EXODUS CODE.

TORCHWOOD – EXODUS CODE, like the intertwined tri-hieroglyphs discovered, the novel focuses simultaneously on three story strands (Peru; Wales; The Ice Maiden ocean-going vessel) which you’ll either enjoy or feel aggrieved about, especially when the action of a particular strand only lasts – as a chapter – only a page or two. However, there lies the strength of the novel; the pace is relentless.

Naturally, familiar characters and (fan pleasing) acknowledgment to TORCHWOOD’s main series and DOCTOR WHO (yes, it’s a wonderful linkage) are cleverly threaded throughout. Life and death jeopardy rears its ugly head on the doorstep of Gwen and Rhys’ home, whilst PC Andy and Rex Matheson have gained appropriate promotion following the Miracle incident. And Captain Jack? As you would expect he finds himself naked (and, cough, aroused – and it’s not for the faint-hearted to read/hear the uncompromising, stirring action) in the heart of the Peruvian jungle with a nubile native, and then seduced by the upfront charms of ship’s cook.

However, sadly, the denouement seems rushed as if the writers were – cough – spent. Anti-climactic could be the phrase. Perhaps, there could have been two “major plot resolutions” in the last quarter of the novel to engage the reader/listener?

Overall, TORCHWOOD – EXODUS CODE is more diverting, enthralling and more intelligent (thankfully, the humour, too, is, less comic) than series four (TORCHWOOD – THE MIRACLE), re-setting for the future in such a confident way that the novel/audiobook could be transferred to the screen – as series five – with ease.

An accomplished work, John & Carole Barrowman can be justifiably proud as will fans.