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As the heads of state meet in Brussels, Belgium, Hugh Ryan starts his busy day at the TMC (Transport Management Centre). At the same time, terrorists put into motion a plan to throw the city into chaos in order to hit their target. Someone wants the city paralyzed in order to steal the next American super weapon: a laser that’s being transported in four parts by four different carriers.
The city’s transport system begins to clog up as generalized power fails in the metro system, car parks malfunction, and roads start to fill to capacity, creating the biggest traffic jam in history. Then a terrorist group takes credit and lets their demands be known.
Sergeant Maria Depage, the liaison officer between the city police force and the anti-terrorist squad, arrives on the scene to learn what she can from Hugh Ryan and the TMC. The plan is to return the city to order with as little casualties as possible—and to foil any plots that the terrorists have put into place.
Roadworks is a somewhat confusing story about a terrorist attack that isn’t really made clear from the beginning—because it seems to start out as something else altogether. It takes a long time for the plot to pick up—and, even then, I couldn’t relate to any of the characters, which made the story less than satisfying.
Sergeant Maria Depage is nothing more than what Hugh Ryan fantasizes her to be, according to his somewhat perverted male perception, making it hard to really care about either one of them. Other characters are interspersed throughout the story, but the author doesn’t linger on any of them long enough to give readers a feel for who they are—which, again, makes it difficult to really care about what happens to them.
Roadworks has its share of adrenaline rushes and moments of excitement—and, with the story had been less confusing in the beginning and the characterization had been better, it could have been a really good terrorism thriller. Unfortunately, though, that’s not the case here.
