Tek Lab - Softcover

This third futuristic crime adventure by Star Trek's Shatner (TekWar, 1989; TekLords, p. 571) displays the same cardboard characterization, predictable plotting, and lackluster prose as before. Once again, private detectives Jake Cardigan and Sid Gomez tangle with the nefarious international dealers of Tek, a mind- altering electronic ``drug.'' The case this time begins with a grisly murder in the style of an elusive serial killer, the Unknown Soldier, but Jake and Gomez have reason to believe it was really the work of the Tek cartels; and through a series of unlikely contrivances and convenient informants, the detectives uncover a plot that links the Tek dealers to a conspiracy (believe it or not!) to restore the banished monarchy to power in England. Along the way, Jake's son Dan, Dan's girlfriend Nancy, and Jake's ex-wife Kate get involved, and the whole family heads for a climatic conclusion aboard a luxury resort satellite, the Caribbean Colony. Shatner's future world is as generic and unconvincing as his characters, and the fast-paced action that carried the other Jake Cardigan adventures is tired and limp here. If this is where Shatner's writing career is headed, one wishes he would return to TV. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In their third adventure (after Teklords ) set in the 22nd century, private detective Jack Cardigan and sidekick Sid Gomez are once again fighting the evil and omnipotent Teklords. A serial killer who calls himself the Unknown Soldier is stalking and executing people whom he perceives as war criminals. The wife of the latest victim thinks her husband was murdered by a copycat assassin at Teklord command, and she hires the detectives to find the Teklord killer. The story goes rapidly downhill as the villains, miraculously aware of the detectives' plans, calmly kill off the witnesses but only try to scare Cardigan away. Nor is the reader distracted from the flaws in the plot by the depiction of earth in 2120: a sprinkling of buzzwords does not paint a foreign culture. There are so many cameo appearances and short sidetracks that all tension is drained from the main story line. What little resolution there is comes not from the efforts of the heroes but from unmotivated mistakes on the part of the Teklords.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.