Reviewer: A reader March 30, 1997
It had once been said that the sonnet form was dead, a mere 14-line vessel into which poets could empty their thoughts. In the wake of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, mystery mavens, after having read its mostly lame imitations, had regretfully come to this conclusion. Then, Caleb Carr wrote THE ALIENIST. Assessing such a book with Amazon's rating system is always a challenge: Do we, the reviewers, unfairly match it up against ALL the great works of literature, or against the standard fare offered by New York's major publishers? In this case, THE ALIENIST stands on its own merits, and earns my "8" against any and all standards.
The book begins well, continues well, and falters rather anticlimactically only at the very end. Other than that, the book is thoroughly researched, bringing not only the imagery but even the sounds and smells, of 1896 New York into our bedrooms and studies. The characterization is superb, far above that of the average novelist and it's fascinating to read an account, albeit a fictional one, of a prototype of a modern day serial killer task force. More than a mere attempt is made to understand the insane logic behind Carr's killer. The reader suspects that Carr was merely bowing to political correctness by introducing a "90's" woman (Sarah), but this officious bow to womens' rights is largely vindicated by giving her a virtually unforgettable personality. John Schuyler Moore makes an Ishmael-type, "morally flawed" narrator, and Lazlo Kreizler comes across almost as three dimensional as Sherlock Holmes. A reader with poetic sensibilities would wish that Mr. Carr had more of a gift for metaphor and simile, but the novel's historical and scientific authenticity, coupled with vivid character delineation, more than make up for his occasional prosiness. The Paramount film version should be no less a treat.
Reviewer: Crawman2@Juno.com from Massachusetts October 16, 1997
NATHAN'S RUN, the remarkable sleeper by novice John Gilstrap, landed on the publishing world like a hydrogen bomb in the night, illuminating the reading public as to just how dreary so-called thrillers are these days.
The "Fugitive" motif, while always a tricky and risky one, is one in which Gilstrap excels (his next novel, AT ALL COSTS, Warner, June '98, also employs characters on the run) and for which he's naturally suited. A former youth counselor, Gilstrap's often rapier-like observations are used to the max in the telling of this story of a young man bewildered at a mad world in which adults have control but perhaps shouldn't.
Endless comparisons have been made to THE CLIENT, but Gilstrap obviously has a far greater command of language, plot, and characterization than John Grisham. Any comparisons to the latter could only honor the former Mississippi lawyer. NATHAN'S RUN will be a motion picture produced by Warner Bros., with the screenplay written by Mr. Gilstrap himself. It is sure to be a movie that will put John Grisham on the run.
Reviewer: NOVELCNCPT@AOL.com from Massachusetts, USA June 29, 1998
The trend in fiction today seems to be in presenting protagonists who are morally flawed, sort of like Ishmael in MOBY DICK, who nonetheless rise above their shortcomings to persevere. This is what John Ramsey Miller has achieved in THE LAST FAMILY.
While certainly not on a par with SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, this novel is certainly a cut or two above the standard fare within the thriller genre, with a high, original concept and one of the best baddies since Hannibal Lecter and Lyle Pointer.
The ending, too, seemed telescoped, gotten over with, unsatisfying, which marred the whole book and largely invalidated what Mr. Miller had worked so hard to set up. The main problem I had while reading LAST FAMILY was that there was not one character in it that I liked.
However, the book has one of the best closing lines I've ever read. I'll certainly give Mr. Miller's next book a chance.
Reviewer: NOVELCNCPT@AOL.com from Massachusetts, USA June 29, 1998
THE ANGEL OF DARKNESS, the sequel to 1994's astounding THE ALIENIST, is one of those rare books that editors only fool themselves into thinking that they've acquired on signing an author- It is a sequel that had to be written and stands alone as a classic unto itself.
Mr. Carr, a professional historian of some note, has catapulted us back to the New York of the late 19th century. We are once again back at Delmonico's and chasing a new serial killer with Dr. Kreizler, the Isaccson brothers, Sara Howard, John Moore, Cyrus, and Stevie Taggart, who tells this story right after John Moore's account in THE ALIENIST.
Libby Hatch, a former nurse, has snatched the baby girl of a Spanish diplomatic couple at exactly the same time that the US is about to declare war on Spain. What appears to be an already sensitive international kidnapping case for Ms. Howard, now a private eye, turns into something more than the motley crew of investigators ever bargained for: The seductive Libby Hatch, they find as they dig into her past, is a serial killer of no mean abilities.
The victimization of children is once again at the heart of Mr. Carr's narrative, but it raises an issue as viable today as it was in 1897- Can women autonomously commit murder with the same psychological protocols as male serial killers and should we treat them differently? This question, coming on the heels of the Karla Faye Tucker execution, is at the crux of this very powerful and well-written novel and will leave you plucking your chin after you've finished the last page.
Reviewer: NOVELCNCPT@AOL.com from Massachusetts, USA June 29, 1998
A routine drug bust in a sleepy South Carolina town (with dozens of federal agents toting automatic weapons, no less) nets more than case agent Irene Rivers bargained for: One of her collars is #1 Most Wanted Fugitive Jake Donovan. Jake and Carolyn Donovan were responsible, says the Federal gov't, for the worst ecological disaster in US history, the biological equivalent of Chernobyl.
The Donovans are completely innocent but have been on the run for 14 years. Barely escaping identification by the FBI, the Donovans flee, their 13 year old son in tow. Then Jake decides to take down the very people who'd framed them.
This story, quite implausible in several spots, still provides as many thrills as a DIE HARD or LETHAL WEAPON movie. Only Mr. Gilstrap, a safety engineer writing from hard experience, maintains the theme established in NATHAN'S RUN- The heartache of being falsely accused and forced to go on the run. Family counts equally in both books. This is an action novel with heart.
Reviewer: NOVELCNCPT@AOL.com from Massachusetts, USA June 29, 1998
The refreshing thing about Jeffrey Deaver is that, unlike so many other attorney-authors, he doesn't feel compelled to jump on the Grisham/Turow bandwagon.
The bad thing about this is that Deaver attempts to tackle subjects without burdening himself with proper research.
Only Deaver's well-developed gift for wordsmithing keeps this book from a one star rating. The protagonist, Michael Hrubek, while a sympathetic character, is one who is plainly insane, therefore incapable of being identified with. As with much of Hemingway's fiction, there was hardly a character in it that I found appealing or rooted for, including Hrubek, who hardly utters a single coherent sentence in the entire story.
The only other reason why this snoozefest got a second star out of me (aside from the fact that you cannot give half stars) was the surprise ending.
This is plainly not a book to be sequelized and let us thank God for small favors. Deaver was clearly coasting here.
Reviewer: NOVELCNCPT@AOL.com from Massachusetts, USA June 29, 1998
As with so many other reviewers on amazon, this is the first Deaver book that I've ever read and it had led me to buy the only other two books of his still in print- A MAIDEN'S GRAVE and PRAYING FOR SLEEP. It is a true joy to discover an already established author whose work you wish to continue reading.
The book is a curious synthesis of failure and success- While it seems to be merely an updating and revision of the earlier THE ALIENIST, the main characters, the writing, and the denouement are sufficiently intriguing to allow the book to succeed on its own merits. The ending, a very satisfying, last second twist, was even better than Carr's in THE ALIENIST, IMHO.
However, the book is so derivative of that classic, that you feel that you are treading over old ground. Let's look at the similarities in both novels:
1) Both have an unofficial serial killer task force, made up of
2) A handicapped protagonist;
3) A frustrated but sharp female detective who really isn't a detective;
4) A Frick and Frack duo of detectives a la The Isaccson Brothers;
5) Both books are concerned with Old New York.
Despite these obvious similarities, the perceptive reader will be drawn into the difficult romance between Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs, as well as Rhyme's determination to commit suicide and the zeroing in on the killer.
THE COFFIN DANCER, the followup to THE BONE COLLECTOR, will be worth waiting for, I'm sure.
Reviewer: NOVELCNCPT@aol.com from Massachusetts, USA July 6, 1998
I've spent this past spring and summer reading, among other things, Jeffrey Deaver's suspense novels. Having finished A MAIDEN'S GRAVE last evening, I'd like to share a few impressions:
If you have to go to work early in the morning, do not read this novel at night. If the fear of what will happen to the next hostage doesn't keep you up, sheer interest will.
Atmospheric at the threshold of tolerance, sharply etched characters, and a plausible plot join forces to create a novel that's destined to stay on the shelves for years to come.
The battle of wits between Art Potter, the dean of FBI negotiators, and the leader of the trio of escaped convicts who've kidnapped a busload of deaf students and teachers and holding them hostage at an abandoned slaughterhouse, is one of the most harrowing on record. Just when you think the conflict has been played out, Deaver turns the knob back up to ten and the game begins all over again.
My two problems with this book: That the lead bad guy, Lou Handy, wasn't delineated well enough, and his accomplices mere cardboard cutouts. However, Deaver handles expository material skillfully and the multiple POVs that the story requires, always a risky venture, is equally satisfying because of the demands that they place on the author.
Problem #2: The blossoming romance between Arthur Potter, a world-weary middle aged widower and Melanie Charrol, the deaf teacher who opposes Lou Handy and his henchmen, a romance based on only one glimpse and a mouthed message between the two, is not only implausible, it's downright pathetic.
However, equally as good as THE BONE COLLECTOR, A MAIDEN'S GRAVE is another Deaver book that deserves a sequel.
Reviewer: Novelcncpt@aol.com from Massachusetts August 3, 1998
Sometimes, I log on to amazon to see what my fellow readers have to say of a book I've just read.
Usually, if not always, I find some reviews that had spotted the same weaknesses in it. Incredibly, I don't find that to be the case here.
PREDATORS is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most ineptly written book I've ever had the misfortune of reading, and I'm including THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY in with that company. It's inconceivable, to me, that not only had Warner considered it fit to be published, but that some lamebrain in Hollywood saw fit to buy the movie rights and to actually green light the project!
The characters are flat, at best, the action implausible, the dialogue about as graceful as an overloaded washer, and the (thank God) only love scene in this loser of a novel actually made me laugh out loud.
To top things off, the alleged writers have no real knowledge of firearms or law enforcement procedure, to say nothing of baseline writing skills.
I can't believe that I actually wasted seven dollars on this turkey. The problem is, though, once you buy a book, you're committed.
Reviewer: Novelcncpt@aol.com from Massachusetts August 3, 1998
It could be persuasively argued that Stephen Hunter is the Tom Clancy of the gun culture- His novels don't read so much as novels as technical manuals.
It's true that POINT OF IMPACT is a solid, gripping novel that should've been made into a motion picture long ago, but the plain fact is, in this technology-driven day and age, where authenticity is the key to success, Stephen Hunter veers dangerously into the realm of fantasy.
Reading the exploits of Bob Lee Swagger (Swagger?!), a thoroughly unlikable man who outwits local police, state police, the FBI, and a shadowy outfit that specializes in assassinations, one is reminded of James Fenimore Cooper, whose own Leatherstocking was the victim of Twain's infamous dismembering.
In POINT OF IMPACT, Bob Lee Swagger and his colleagues drop people from 1500 yards, almost a mile, seemingly without the aid of mil dots, a revolutionary invention that's used in conjunction with a scope and greatly aids the sniper in establishing range and tabulating drops and spirals for those who know their ballistics tables.
Yet, Swagger and his rivals down their targets with almost superhuman prescience and body control. In real life, snipers just aren't this good.
However, judged as straight fiction, it's to Mr. Hunter's credit that he makes the outrageous plausible and crafts a good tale. I can't wait to read TIME TO HUNT.
Reviewer: Novelcncpt@aol.com from Massachusetts, USA August 14, 1998
In BLACK LIGHT, the real second book in the Swagger trilogy (DIRTY WHITE BOYS, although Stephen Hunter claims it is, is not part of the Swagger trilogy- it is only part of the Swagger universe), falls victim to the middle child status, but rightfully so. Like many trilogies, the second installment is often subpar and serves merely as a bridge between the original and exciting high concept opening and sets up an exciting climax for the end of the trilogy.
Still, BLACK LIGHT is clever in spots, reading like a good murder mystery, even though the denouement is a bit predictable. It doesn't depend as heavily on firearms as its predecessor, POINT OF IMPACT, and Bob Lee Swagger's character is allowed to naturally develop. He's looser, more prone to joke, but still keeps his trademark irascibility and taciturnity.
In BLACK LIGHT, Swagger begins to investigate the circumstances surrounding his father's death 40 years before. He is joined by some Holden Caulfield-type character who almost has no place in the novel. Personally, I feel that this kid, whose father, in DIRTY WHITE BOYS, had killed the son of the man accused of killing Swagger's father, would've been better employed merely as a catalyst to get Swagger in action, then gracefully disappearing.
Still, as with TIME TO HUNT (the close of the Swagger trilogy), Hunter switches back and forth in time frames rather adroitly in Tarantino fashion, delineating the chain of events for us.
There is one particularly violent gun battle and a heart-stopping sniper's duel toward the end of the book.
All in all, a not very satisfying read, but Hunter's talent and professionalism nudges it in the realm of competent novels.
Reviewer: Robert Crawford (Crawman2@Juno.com) from Hudson, MA October 9, 1999
Last year I'd read MORTAL PURSUIT by Brian Harper, who's now writing under the nom de plume Michael Prescott, perhaps a savvy move by his publishers at Signet who wish to distance themselves from the author of the PURSUIT series.
The blurb on the book's cover is sexist enough as it is- "For a female cop, the next six hours is all about staying alive." Why should it matter at all if the cop is a female?
The blurb should read, instead, "For the reader, the next six hours is all about staying awake."
It is preposterous to expect the reader to believe that a cop is going to stay out of radio contact without anyone attempting to look for him/her and the ghost-from-the-past plot device is too hackneyed for words.
This may do for a few empty hours at the beach or the laundromat but I'd recommend going to a second-hand bookstore to pick up this and "Harper's" other PURSUIT novels.
Reviewer: Robert Crawford from Hudson, Massachusetts March 24, 2000
Occasionally, a so-so book (like JAWS and THE FAN, to name just two examples) comes along that Hollywood turns into an even better movie. THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER is just such a case.
As murder mysteries go, the denouement comes absurdly early (with almost 100 pages to go we're told that the main suspect is so and so, based largely on a conversation at the Officer's Club that was inconclusive, at best).
The majority of the book drags on like a 200 foot-long snake and the only saving feature is the witty Nick and Nora Charles-like dialogue between Brenner and Sunhill. The obvious references to and flavor of THE TAMING OF THE SHREW notwithstanding, the book falls flat on its figurative face. It seems to have no beginning or end, just an endless middle. Reading the book was less a labor of love as a love of labor.
Hollywood had taken some daring liberties with this book, obviously, and anyone who's ever read and seen THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER will readily see that. However, this is one case where Hollywood's vision deviated from the novelist's, resulting in a better story. No wonder DeMille was pleased with it. Perhaps he saw that it was, indeed, a better and more thrilling denouement.
Reviewer: Robert Crawford from Hudson, Massachusetts March 25, 2000
In light of the 12 year-old Ohio boy who'd recently held his classmates and teacher at gunpoint with a fully loaded 9 mm semiautomatic, this book almost seems like a prophecy. Kennett has written an engrossing, ultimately terrifying story that bids fair to re-sharpen the blunted sensibilities of we who have been treated to an almost weekly dose of school violence.
CHAMELEON is a disturbing book that, while it doesn't even begin to promise a solution to schoolyard violence, stills presents a chilling, well-written account of the consequences of parents and teachers not reading the signs.
Reviewer: Robert Crawford from Hudson, MA March 25, 2000
Hannibal Lecter, move over. Dr. John Cray is the new resident psycho physician on the ward. Hannibal the Cannibal took one victim's face in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS in order to effect his escape. Dr. John Cray, who runs a mental hospital, makes this a habit. His signature is as chilling as the M.O.
Then, to his astonishment, Cray begins to suspect that someone is actually stalking him! The events are contorted and twisted with gleeful abruptness by "newcomer" Prescott and you would swear that Cray's captured victim will never escape his deadly web of deceit.
Of course, Cray's uncharacteristically sloppy handling of incriminating evidence is the only implausible part in the whole book but it doesn't mar what will prove to be a fine thriller by the author of COMES THE DARK and THE SHADOW HUNTER.
Reviewer: Robert Crawford from Hudson, MA October 7, 2000
When Ms. Kava had sent me the first nine chapters of this novel in an email ms last spring, I had to admit that I was hooked by page one. It was agonizing for me to have to wait another year and a half to read the rest of my friend's book. However, I had guessed at the killer's identity and Jefferys's relationship to him after reading the first nine chapters. I'm glad (and sorry) to say that I was right.
Kava sets up a compelling, if thread-worn story (the book's crimes are based on an actual series of child-murders in Kava's small Nebraska hometown. Even the date for Jefferys's execution is slavishly cribbed from the original date), using a near-expert POV that threatens to rival Jeffery Deaver's. The book, despite the annoying pseudo-romantic distractions, still maintains a pace like a Mac truck on a steep grade with the brakes out.
The backstory, too, regarding Albert Stuckey and FBI profiler Maggie O'Dell is compelling and Kava expertly sets up an immediate demand for the sequel in the last page.
What bothers me about this book, and these points have been brought up time and again by earlier reviewers, is that Ms. Kava knows nothing or next-to-nothing about FBI profiling and protocol, municipal law enforcement procedure and a hundred other topics. There isn't enough actual romance to make the relationship between Nick and Maggie to qualify A PERFECT EVIL as a romance (even though Mira is an imprint of Harlequin). Yet Maggie's pheramonal reaction to the lady killer sheriff merely subtracts from her already fading credibility as an FBI profiler and an independent, professional woman.
In the end, I have to say that A PERFECT EVIL, while it confirmed my suspicions regarding the killer's identity (which, regardless of the plethora of obligatory red herrings, is easily discernible long before the end), it fell far short of my expectations. Hopefully, Ms. Kava's sequel, SPLIT SECOND, will be a more mature and accomplished effort.
It pays for not only a writer to read widely, it also benefits the reader. In this case, it's enormously amusing to see from whence Boris Starling, a talented but still-developing new novelist, derived his inspiration in STORM.
Readers of John Douglas's and Mark Olshaker's MINDHUNTER will chuckle and recall Edmund Kemper when they read the flashback chapter in which Blackadder kills and dismembers his mother. Down to the larynx popping out of the garbage disposal and Starling commenting that "even in death she still wouldn't shut up", we see just how bereft of inspiration the author was in giving his serial killer some validity.
On a more conspicuous level, even the most cursory reader will see just from the back cover blurbs of how much STORM owes THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (and this parallel is made even more irresistible when one recalls the author's last name): Female detective with a painful relationship to her father in a sequel seeks the advice of a convicted killer, and implausibly springing him from prison, in order to catch another one. A near-irresistible plot device, yes, but one that should not be overdone or perhaps even done again, not even by the great Thomas Harris.
Not being well read in Greek mythology, however, actually benefits the reader, as Blackadder derives his inspiration from a trilogy of ancient Greek dramas that uncannily (too much so) parallel his tormented childhood. Only in the last chapters in the book do we see and appreciate how much life is imitating art and recycled back into the twisted art of ritualistic serial murder.
Starling's prose is brilliant, especially in the opening chapter aboard the doomed Amphitrite. The writing is graceful, loaded with ingenious metaphors and similes, marking Starling as a new voice that demands to be heard and respected. The only thing of which I am judge is Starling's insistence on writing in present tense. This does not necessarily give immediacy of action or make him a more unique voice nor more successfully integrate the reader into the story. As it is, the ceaseless present tense is a distraction if not an irritation.
The penultimate chapter redeems the rest of the book and provides the reader with one of the most gut wrenching, visceral denouements in recent thriller fiction. The obligatory red herrings that are a staple to many murder mysteries successfully throw off the reader until the final 20 pages when Starling adroitly lets us know the identity of Blackadder.
There are many knockoffs of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and this is one of the better ones. However, the loose ends (Kate's and her beau's relationship, Kate's and her Dad's relationship, Leo freaking out at police HQ), unrealistic resolutions, the improbable connection between the sinking of the ferry and the Blackadder killings, the lack of page space given to Red Metcalf (who strikes me as being vastly more interesting a character than the washed-out Kate Beauchamp), unoriginality, and the overall sluggish pace of STORM makes me rate it with three stars.
Hopefully, Starling will write a standalone thriller next time, one that invigorates him to the point where he doesn't have to raid the annals of true crime for his inspiration. Give Beauchamp a vacation and think of a new hero(ine).
How does one reinvent the wheel? How does one create, a la Praxiteles, a character as realistic and engaging as Hannibal without becoming a victim of the audience's expectations? Indeed, how much does the reading public own of a franchise and how much control does the author have a right to exert before betraying widely held expectations?
These are questions that will no doubt be debated as long as stories are still published and HANNIBAL will often be brought up as both point and counterpoint during these arguments.
In the case of HANNIBAL, the reading public is forced to make a choice: Would they prefer to let the chips fall where they may and be grateful for Thomas Harris's latest (and last, it appears) Lecter novel or do they legitimately have certain proprietary rights? Harris is a pragmatic enough individual, I would guess, to not give a damn what the readers think, as long as they continue buying his books. The story's been told and it is as good as cast in stone.
If the reader rightfully expects that Harris's narrative gifts have not been atrophied in the ten-year hiatus since SILENCE, then they will not be disappointed. The Florentine historical asides are welcome and provide a tight elliptical sense of justice that befalls Pazzi.
The pacing will not disappoint the reader, either, unless they're accustomed to 60,000 word Mac Bolan slam bang shoot-em-ups. Since Harris is such an immensely talented writer, even the straight action sequences (I'm thinking primarily of the Drumgo bust gone bad) are better written and structured than many written by those who specialize in it.
It will also surprise the reader that they will find themselves rooting for the captive Lecter and hoping that Starling will rescue him in the end. This is largely because the true villain in HANNIBAL, Mason Verger, is a creation borne of true literary genius. This is a character, a pedophile, who reduces underprivileged children to tears with a few malicious comments then drinks their tears in a martini glass. Such iniquity we cannot picture Dr. Lecter indulging in.
If one expects to find answers regarding Hannibal's provenence and his genesis and motivation as a serial killer and cannibal, then, once again, this story will not disappoint. One finds themself completely absorbed in the flashback scenes in which Hannibal Lecter's sister is killed and cannibalized (backstory that's completely ignored in the movie, unfortunately). Far from robbing Lecter of his mystique, this serves to enrich his character. Not providing a logical psychological explanation for Lecter's unique protocol would appear to be a dodge.
But if the reader expects that Lecter will continue killing as he did in the good old days, with Starling once again helplessly wondering to where he'd escaped, then the reader will run up against a wall. This is the bone of contention.
The now-infamous dinner scene, portrayed with a fair amount of fidelity in the movie, gives us some elegant but cheap laughs and the weirdness only escalates in the closing chapter in Buenos Aires, when Agent Starling's subjugation is complete. One feels that Harris felt himself a victim of his own creations and sought to change them as radically as possible and thereby avoiding the onus of writing another Lecter novel. It was a tragic and anticlimactic end to one of the best female detectives in modern commercial fiction. No wonder Jodi Foster, on this basis alone, wanted nothing to do the sequel. She, too, as with countless other readers, took a proprietary interest in Agent Starling.
HANNIBAL ends with possibly the best closing line in this decade but it is not nearly enough to counterbalance what could've been an even better book than SILENCE.
Enjoy! Let me know what you think. My email address is Crawman2@yahoo.com