F. Paul Wilson’s ‘ICE Trilogy’

I have previously posted on F. Paul Wilson‘s Repairman Jack series. This series, which comprises about 15 novels and several short stories, also ties into his Adversary series, not counting a couple of prequel trilogies. Jack is a sort of “urban mercenary,” but I saw elements of pulp heroes in him, such as The Spider.

The Repairman Jack stories are a central part of Wilson’s larger series of interlocking works called the Secret History of the World. This tells of what is going “behind the curtain,” of our world being part of a conflict between unimaginable cosmic “entities.”

And as I noted, many of his other works tie in.

One that I had overlooked — as I figured they were just medical thrillers — was his ICE Trilogy. I recently discovered they are part of the Secret History, and so I decided to check them out. While they are, to a part, medical thrillers, there is more to them. And for the most part, their connections to the Secret History doesn’t become too blatant until the final one.

The series is:

• Panacea (2016)
• The God Gene (2018)
• The Void Protocol (2019)

The heroes of the trilogy are Dr. Laura Fanning and Rick Hayden. At first glance, they gave me a “Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase” vibe from Andy McDermott‘s series. Laura is an M.D. and medical examiner, who is also half Mayan (through her mother), but who has blue eyes. She’s a scientist, but can take care of herself. Rick Hayden is assigned to protect her and is a former SEAL who is very competent. We will learn most of his story in the first novel, and meet several of his family in the second.

Yes, they soon get involved. Laura is divorced with a young daughter suffering from leukemia. Laura’s daughter likes Rick very much. So I also saw a similar vibe of Jack getting involved with Gia in that series, and caring for her daughter Vicky. The themes are similar, mind you, not identical.

In Panacea, Laura is examining the bodies of two men who were burned up, but she can find no cause of death. Both have a strange tattoo on their backs. She is approached by a billionaire who is suffering from an incurable disease, but has heard of a miracle cure-all, a panacea, that exists. And wants to fund Laura going to find it, as there was a connection between the two men. But there is also a bizarre group, a brotherhood with ties to the CIA, who want to wipe it out. They see Laura as a means of leading them to the source. And Rick is assigned by the billionaire to guard her.

They go after this panacea, which takes them from Central America, to Israel, to the Pyrenees, to the Oakley Islands — with the brotherhood right behind them. Can they find the panacea, as not only does the billionaire need it, but Laura’s daughter takes a turn for the worse and will die?

Along the way, Rick explains his idea of sinister cosmic entities, due to an experience he had in Germany. And why there are so many strange connections in their adventures.

In The God Gene, we learn more about Rick’s brother and family. He and his siblings were all adopted. His older brother, a brilliant zoologist, has strangely disappeared. His mother wants him found. Laura wants to help. Rick’s brother had found a strange, blue-eyed primate, and something he discovered in its genes had him very worried. At the same time, a man from South Africa is apparently looking for similar primates. Laura and Rick start to track things back, and this takes them to East Africa in pursuit. This then leads them to a previously unknown island off Madagascar that is inhabited by these primates, and learn what it was that so scared Rick’s brother. Rick is about to find his brother, but things don’t quite go as hoped.

Rick also expands on his idea, and we learn what ICE stands for. Also, in this and the prior novel, we get passing hints of events in the Repairman Jack stories.

In The Void Protocol, the trilogy wraps up with a bang. Rick is still working for his billionaire boss, who has a new pet project: finding folks with real psychic powers, such as telekinesis, teleportation, and levitation. Laura, who has decided to go into neurology, wants to help out. They have found several folks with such powers, including one whose power is to find others with these abilities. But in looking for the origins of their powers, they alert the folks who caused it: a shadowy government project. They had brought “something” from “somewhere.” From that, they found a material that they used in experiments, and it was this that caused the powers. Now they want these talented people.

Rick and Laura are pulled into it all, of course. Rick learns that this ties into his idea of ICE and what happened to him in Germany. Everything comes to a head in New Jersey in devastating ways.

So if you’re interested in the whole Secret History stuff, this may be a good intro to it. It’s only in the last part that it becomes more obvious. As Wilson’s Secret History works have an internal chronology, these are all set within a few months to a year before the events of Nightworld. So I wonder how Laura and Rick faired during those events? But this is an interesting series of works. The second has some interesting ideas about evolution and the development of mankind. As Wilson is an actual doctor, I wonder how much of that is real?