Cease to Exist (The Richard O'Brien Series Book 2) by Ian Rodney Lazarus; Brilliant Treacherous Duo and Transition Theme Steal Complex Plot About Genetic Engineering and Warring Countries
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: I'm beginning to sense a pattern in the Richard O'Brien books so far. While O’Brien is himself a compelling protagonist with his shaky love life, his brilliance combined with physical toughness, and his morally gray philosophical look at life, it's the antagonists who are some of the more captivating and stimulating parts of the books.
In the previous book, Con and Consequence, the genius con artist turned terrorist, Jelani captured Reader's interests with Jelani's arrogance at pulling a con job with many victims and his panic when he learned about his new organization's true goals and motives. His inscrutable handler, The Professor, also fascinated with their deceptive plays on all sides and the mystery of their real identity and loyalties.
The next book in Ian Rodney Lazarus’s stirring Political Thriller series, Cease to Exist gives us another pair of intriguing antagonists. The first is Emma Lee, a Chinese emigre who steals CRISPR samples from her work lab and also spies for various governments particularly China, North Korea, and the United States.
The other is Dennis Spence, secretive founder of the nonprofit Center for New Beginnings, a rehab center/mental hospital with a dubious reputation. He is also a trans male and recipient of the CRISPR samples that his partner, Emma stole.
Meanwhile, Richard O'Brien became an FBI special agent after he was removed from his former position as a linguist and translator. Reports of missing people with connections to The Center of New Beginnings puts Richard on the case and right in Emma and Dennis's path. The stolen CRISPR samples, missing people, and Emma, Dennis, and Richard’s exploits are revealed to be parts of larger stakes from bigger governments who have wider motives and uses for genetic engineering technology.
Similar to Con and Consequence, Cease to Exist shows the threads beginning with the sample theft and the missing persons cases. Then these threads grow larger and become more tangled with international plots in which the wealthy and powerful world leaders cause long term complications for their own personal gain.
The strongest theme in this volume is transition. Everyone is transitioning from one life to another. Their lives, jobs, roles, personalities, ideologies, and gender identities are in flux and require great thought, skill, patience, persistence, and acceptance. Once the book ends, it becomes clear that nobody is the same person that they were in the early chapters or the previous volume.
Richard goes from being a bright academic and translator to an active field agent. His first few chapters focus on his training and the lessons, such as memorizing code words while in captivity, become useful during his assignment. He becomes less cerebral and an outsider and more active and aggressive while on the inside.
His love life also goes through a change. In the previous volume, he was written as a callous womanizer with a long term girlfriend who took her own life. He ended the last book in a relationship with Special Agent Sarah Goodman. In this volume, he is involved with Sarah and while he strays or thinks of other women, he feels guilt for it and does everything that he can to patch things up with Sarah. While there are still problems in his personal life, Richard is veering towards taking things to another level and maturing.
He also has to play many parts while undercover. Once he impersonates a kidnap victim during an international prison exchange. One of the darkest creepiest sections occurs when he is institutionalized for a time after investigating a lead at The Center for New Beginnings. The gaslighting from Dennis and his staff is so effective that Richard doubts whether he really is an FBI agent or it was just a delusion.
Emma is another character who goes through many changes. One of the most interesting aspects to her character is her chameleon like way of adapting and changing herself to fit how others see her. While working in the genetic engineering, she takes on the role of an amusing geeky girl who watches Science Fiction films like Jurassic Park with her colleagues. She becomes a loyal and devoted friend and lover to Dennis even willing to break the law for him. In front of her handlers, she is cold blooded and methodical.
One of her most intriguing changes occurs later in the book when she acts as a honey trap in a game of seduction. She is dressed in a sexy gown, speaks in double entendre, and draws her target in with her allure and charisma. It's hard to believe that she is the same nerd applauding Jeff Goldblum’s speeches in Jurassic Park before stealing CRISPR samples but it shows her versatility and transformation in becoming the person others want to see in her.
Emma has a lot of layers that Lazarus expertly writes so it's hard to tell who the real Emma Lee is. After all, if she plays so many roles, how do we know where the real Emma begins and ends or if a real Emma exists at all.
Naturally, the biggest change occurs within Dennis Spence. Lazarus goes to great lengths to show us Dennis's background of abuse that he endured during his early years of his assigned female gender at birth when he lived under the name of Denise. It was a violent abusive past that Dennis had to run from. Despite being an antagonist, Lazarus writes Dennis with a lot of care so we can see a multifaceted person with a backstory that created the person that he became.
It's clear that Dennis has been hurt and chose to return that hurt to others. He sees the world as shallow and empty and people as mere playthings that can do whatever he wants. Similar to The Professor, he hides his true intentions and alliances. But unlike his predecessor who has the luxury of anonymity, Dennis hides his real nature and past behind a public philanthropic famous persona. He keeps up appearances while hiding a knife that will stab anyone who interferes.
There are other transformations which play into the plot and these changes affect the wider goals of government officials who want to perform their own transitions. They want to change the world around them so only they can benefit and others are destroyed. That's a transition which benefits no one. There are no winners, only dictators and those that they crush until they themselves are crushed by those who have had enough.
