From Library Journal:

When Angela Browning, the host of a popular PBS science show, receives a strange unmarked package in the mail, she finds a computer disk on which there is a photograph that may prove the existence of life on Mars. In trying to determine whether this photo is a fake, Angela discovers that the picture’s source may be the Mars Observer probe, which disappeared in 1993 hours before it was supposed to land on the red planet. How could this lost probe have taken a photograph? Her quest for the truth leads her to Apollo astronaut Jake Deaver, the last man to walk on the moon. Unfortunately for Angela, Deaver has secrets that must remain hidden. Tigerman’s intriguing debut, which the author claims is based more on fact than fiction, is an entertaining piece of brain candy, that will appeal to fans of conspiracy thrillers and The X-Files. For larger fiction collections.
– Jeff Avers, Seattle P.L.

 

 

From Barnes and Noble:

Gary Tigerman's debut novel, The Orion Protocol, is nothing short of spectacular. An edge-of-your-seat thriller about life on Mars, a massive government cover-up, billion-dollar black-budget projects, and frozen alien remains on the South Pole, this novel is a page-turner of the highest order – equally fascinating and disturbing.

When Angela Browning, the popular host of a PBS science show, receives an unmarked computer disc in the mail containing an astonishing picture of archeological ruins on Mars, she quietly goes to the experts to find out whether the picture is a fake. Two NASA scientists confirm that the picture is real and speculate that the image could have come only from the Mars Observer, a two billion dollar probe that was launched in 1991 and inexplicably disappeared two years later. But if the space probe did find extraterrestrial monuments on Mars – unarguably the greatest scientific discovery of the century – why didn't NASA share the discovery with the rest of the world?

The genius of a story like this is that Tigerman has incorporated so many real historical documents and events into the story line: the Brookings Report commissioned by President Eisenhower in 1958, the ET Exposure Act of 1968, and the ill-fated Mars Observer mission in the early 1990s, to name a few. And that's why The Orion Protocol is so entertaining. It doesn't read like science fiction at all but more like a breaking news story. Those interested in speculative fiction involving extraterrestrials and government cover-ups (like Robert Doherty's Area 51 novels and Kevin D. Randle's Exploration Chronicles) should read this intriguing novel.
– Paul Goat Allen

 

 

From Publishers Weekly:

In 1959, the U.S. government issued a report by the Brookings Institution, coauthored by famed anthropologist Margaret Mead, recommending that any evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence found during the exploration of our solar system be withheld from the general public-who might react badly to it. This, suggests Tigerman in his lumpy, jumpy but rarely boring first novel, was the start of a massive coverup, exposed during the first 100 days of the administration of George W. Bush's fictional successor, a former Democratic senator from Colorado. When someone inside the NASA establishment sends PBS science correspondent Angela Browning pictures of fabulous archeological ruins on Mars, pictures that seem to have come from a supposedly lost Mars probe, it sets off a series of frighteningly believable defensive maneuvers by a host of government agencies. To find out more, Browning tracks down Jake Deaver, one of the last astronauts to walk on the moon. Together, the two embark on an investigation that not only reveals the existence of extraterrestrials but also uncovers the true function of a strategic defense shield dubbed Project Orion. As the novel proceeds, chapters and sections become increasingly short and jerky, and Tigerman's usually brisk prose occasionally turns baroque: "The fact was that Mother England's runaway child was only a blink away from possessing the means for world domination on a scale only Deutschland's most infamous housepainter had ever envisioned, burning himself alive with pure methamphetamine crystal and raving in his self-made Bergtesgarden [sic] of corpses." Despite its inconsistencies, however, this is stirring speculative fiction.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.