The Traveler

John Twelve Hawks

11/17/2005

Maya has been pulled back into the family business despite her wishes to avoid it. Her father is a Harlequin, a person trained to protect Travelers and is a human killing machine. He raised her to be the same. But she walked away from the calling, preferring to live a "normal" life in London. Her father asks her to visit him in Poland. When she does, he reports the possibility of two more Travelers. They had thought all the Travelers had been killed by the Tabula.

Gabriel and Michael Corrigan had been raised to "live off the grid", leaving no clues to their identies, no connections with society. Gabriel has maintained that lifestyle. Michael has started dealing in real estate in Los Angeles. He has now established himself and has a verifiable identity. When their mother dies of cancer, she warns them that they are special. Their father was a Traveler and they may have inherited the technique. Travelers are able to let their inner light travel across realms into alternate realities. She warns them to avoid the Tabula. That night Michael is almost ambushed by four cars but Gabriel is able to save his brother.

Maya allows herself to be drawn back into the dangerous, lonely life of a Harlequin. She has learned how to fool security cameras and how to get dangerous weapons past airport security. She flies to Los Angeles to find the Corrigan brothers. If they are Travelers, it is her sworn duty to protect them from the Tabula. She doesn't care who she has to kill; she will protect them. But as she is trying to get them away from their hiding place, she only succeeds in rescuing Gabriel. Michael is taken by the Tabula and is flown out to New York to become part of a new Tabula experiment to rule the world.Now Maya has to protect Gabriel, hide from the "vast machine" that can track anyone in the United States through the technology that is in place to protect us, and rescue Michael from the Tabula. Gabriel and Michael have to decide whether they believe the wild stories of the light leaving their bodies and traveling to worlds other than the one they know. Each of them have to discover what their power is and decide how to use it.

What a riveting suspense novel The Traveler is! It also has its supernatural and science fiction aspects with the movement between different realms. Not only has Twelve Hawks twined together an interesting account of how we are losing our individuality, but also has a good suspense and likeable, believable characters. In the month or so that this novel covers the characters are highly affected by the events around them. Twelve Hawks handles their growth, emotions, and rejections in a believable fashion.

This fiction novel feels real, especially when you walk away from it and start noticing all the surveillance cameras, shopping cards, Internet transactions, and other day to day technologies that are now used that can be easily tracked. You don't have to be a hacker to learn about another person. Instead you can work with the government or companies like the Brethren (Tabula) that can follow anyone anywhere technology is. Big Brother could easily be watching you.

The Traveler is the first in a trilogy, yet is self-contained. Yes, there are many threads to be tied up. Still, the ending is satisfactory and like real life - there are always unresolved issues.

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Notice: graphic violence