Storming Heaven

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
In his debut novel, Rising Phoenix, Kyle Mills introduced wild-card FBI agent Mark Beamon, a man who never does things strictly by the book. In Storming Heaven, the compulsively readable follow-up, Mills firmly establishes himself as a top writer of thrillers in the company of Thomas Harris and Ridley Pearson.

Jennifer Davis, a bit of a wild card herself, has just finished a grueling bike race. Her parents have cheered her on, and even the neighbors have arrived to support her. She has all the usual teenage problems, including a boyfriend her parents don't really approve of, while they pressure her to like the neighbors' doltish, football-playing son. After dinner, Jennifer and her family return to their beautiful home in Flagstaff, Arizona, only to have a night of terror ahead of them. When Jennifer takes one step into the dark house, she hears her father shout for her to run away. As she enters, she beholds a gruesome scene. Strangers have guns to her parents' heads. Soon, her mother and father are dead, and the strangers who have orchestrated their deaths come for her.

For Mark Beamon, FBI agent, this is very nearly business as usual. He's dealt with kidnappings before, but what makes this one unusual is that he's very quickly aware that there's some choreography in this kidnapping-murder scenario. Beamon has instincts for the offbeat, and he detects what's wrong with this picture right away. The crime scene looks as if Jennifer's parents may have killed themselves. But why? In investigating, he finds that the missing Jennifer was adopted by the Davises, after her natural parents died in a fire when she was two. Further complicating the issue, no one in Jennifer's general vicinity seems to know anything. Who would murder the Davis couple? And why take Jennifer afterward, when there was no hope of ransom with the parents dead?

The trails to discovery seem to be leading toward dead ends, until Beamon locates Jennifer's biological uncle, who has presumably not seen her since she was two years old. Living in a ramshackle pile in the middle of a Utah nowhere, he is a convicted child molester who seems to have secrets to protect. As Beamon gets closer to the truth about Jennifer's family, he finds a whole new world opening up beneath him. An organized religious cult, the Church of the Evolution, somehow plays into the fate of Jennifer and her parents. But this "church" has strong political power, even in Washington, and Beamon soon learns that to find Jennifer, he must go up against some incredibly powerful people. Beamon steps all too quickly into a horrifying world of religious fanatics and end-of-the-world plots, his only goal being to rescue a young girl who plays a role that even she doesn't understand. The story is tense, and the stakes are high. But at the heart of this nightmare is Jennifer Davis herself, who must do everything she can to survive her abductors.

Kyle Mills is a major talent, and Storming Heaven is both a terrific entertainment and a story of sharp twists, turns, and mysteries. If you want high-octane thrills, then grab a copy. (Douglas Clegg)

Douglas Clegg is the author of numerous horror and suspense novels, including The Halloween Man and Bad Karma, written under his pseudonym Andrew Harper.

Tom Clancy

Kyle Mills is a writer to watch.

Frederick Forsyth

In a world of political thrillers, I have the feeling that young Kyle Mills will soon be a very big player.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A heart-pounding thriller that moves with the speed of an out-of-control luge on a downhill run.

Publishers Weekly

This formulaic second novel starring maverick FBI agent Mark Beamon (after Rising Phoenix, 1997) suffers from contrived plotting, ponderous pacing and lapses of credibility. Now exiled to the rural environs of the Arizona bureau office, Beamon is called off the golf course to investigate what initially seems to be the murder of a couple by their disappeared teenaged daughter; although no federal crime is suggested until well into the investigation, G-man Beamon doesn't let details like jurisdiction bother him. And as it happens, young suspect Jennifer Davis has been kidnapped by the Kneissians, a sort of Mooney-like PTL Club, because she is in actuality the granddaughter of the sect's patriarch. The old man is dying, and he plans for her to take his place. However, his surrogate daughter, Sara, has other plans, and she uses the church's millions of members, billions of dollars and tentacular reaches into the highest levels of government and finance to ensure her own rise to power. All of which we know long before Beamon agonizingly figures it out. Suspended and thereby free to "break the rules," Beamon pursues Jennifer's kidnappers through the snowy streets of Flagstaff, with far-fetched strokes of luck and acts of derring-do better suited to old cop shows than to a novel. Shot through with clich s, inane dialogue and unnecessary accounts of Beamon's propensity for strong drink and tobacco, the novel slips along to a highly predictable conclusion. Rights, William Morris Agency. (Aug.)

Library Journal

After the success of last year's Rising Phoenix, Mills returns with maverick FBI agent Mark Beamon, whose hunt for a kidnapped teenage girl is bringing him nothing but harassment.

Kirkus Reviews

A second novel thatþs several cuts above the average thriller, largely because it keeps to a human level and oils its wheels with immensely amusing non sequiturs. Once again, Mills (Rising Phoenix,1997) focuses on a quasi-religious group as a basis for the story's moral ambiguities. This time, it's the Church of the Evolution, whose 11 million clean-cut members parallel Scientology's in paying heavy dues to rise through stages and achieve jealously guarded top status as "clears." The group in this case is led not by L. Ron Hubbard but by the much more brilliant and human 80-year-old Albert Kneiss. Like Scientology, the Church has its so-called enemies in Germany, but here this is only a publicity ploy to attract Americans devoted to religious freedom. Kneiss, however, the messenger of God who returns to Earth every 2,000 years, is dyingþor rather ascending to Godþand a replacement leader is needed. This turns out to be Kneiss's long-hidden granddaughter Jennifer Davis, whose mother is dead but who has been adopted by secret Church members Eric and Patricia Davis. All along, the Church's business and membership sides have been run by Sara Renslier, Millsþs charismatic villain, who now has Jennifer kidnaped and her "parents" killed before her eyes. Investigating is Mark Beamon, a loose cannon FBI agent whoþs been given a post in Flagstaff to run. Overweight, overdrinking Beamon is no beauty but has a very heady IQ and the highest success rate in the Bureau for solving kidnapings. Now, though, he finds himself up against an organization with fantastic powers, with members (like the Mormons) everywhereþin Congress, the Bureau, the police. Soon, his creditcards are turned to zilch, his every move dogged, a painful rumor is spread that heþs a child molester, and news stories appear about his drinking. Even the Bureau's ready to crush him. Mills shapes his stereotypes with human clay, and excels at one-liners that quickly draw a reader into his spirited storytelling.