Reviewer: Robert Crawford March 7, 2001
I'd read WATCH ME over a year ago but since I'd just gotten ahold of the sequel CATCH ME last w/e and am ignoring the books bought for me by my family for Xmas in favor of Holt's new novel, I thought that I'd share some of my impressions.
First off, I no more believe that WATCH ME is Holt's first book than I believe Robert James Waller has talent. This is a poised, polished, savvy effort and first novels, not even NATHAN'S RUN, turn out this good. Holt is a bestselling author under his/her real name and I'm sure that I've read this author before.
Secondly, just when people think the serial killer genre has been done to death (pardon the phrase) someone like AJ Holt comes along to breathe new life and brings us a combination of Brian Garfield's DEATH WISH and Thomas Harris's SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. There are several vigilante novels out there, the most execrable being PREDATORS, but Holt's slick, well-paced effort is easily head and shoulders above them.
The characterization was adequate, not nearly as detailed as in Harris's efforts but what the author lacks in character development (I didn't believe his half-hearted explanation as to why Jay turned renegade FBI agent), s/he more than makes up for in plotting and action. The denouement was genuinely thrilling and Holt set up a demand for the sequel, which thankfully had come two years ago.
What'll the next one be called? MATCH ME?
Reviewer: NOVELCNCPT@aol.com from Massachusetts USA July 7, 1998
I'd read this novel (Vertical Run) sometime last year, but is still vivid enough in my mind to write a review of it.
This admittedly implausible novel (why didn't the bad guys try to take him out in a less public venue, such as at home, for instance?) is nevertheless one of the most exciting reads you'll ever come across.
Dave Elliot arrives at the office to find that his boss wants him dead. While this may be a common concept to anyone who's ever held down a job in the corporate world, Garber then sets the action in fast forward mode and doesn't let up until there are 50 very dead bad guys lying and literally hanging around this office building.
If I were amazon, I wouldn't rate this book on a five blue star criteria: I'd use five white knuckles.
To judge from the blurb on the book's dust jacket, it appears to the reader as if Gilstrap has written yet another imperiled child/family-on-the-run novel for which he's rapidly becoming known. But Pocket Books, John Gilstrap's new publisher, is deliberately misleading the reader into making such an assumption. The central protagonists, Bobby and Susan Martin, spend most of the book either at their house or the mall. The only time they are on the run is when they're escaping the murder scene at the national park and are racing back home. Other than that, it's notable that Mr. Gilstrap was trying to stretch his wings a bit here and leaving mainly his devotion to the family unit as the only common denominator shared by NATHAN'S RUN, still his high water mark, and AT ALL COSTS. Pocket Books, however, would have you believe otherwise. Shame on them.
That said, EVEN STEVEN starts out promisingly. As always, Gilstrap sets up conflicts and situations that actually engage the reader. You feel Bobby and Susan Martin's desperate bid for parenthood, you hurt with April Simpson in her hopeless situation. These are real-life problems that plague so many of us, yet Gilstrap is able to give them even more dramatic impact in his fiction.
But then something very strange happens- the character delineation stops and, while the book takes place over a 24 hour period and doesn't leave much room for character development (OTOH, Susan dramatically swings back and forth from a normal state to a completely delusional state back to a normal state in those 24 hours), the reader is denied the chance for more backstory in these characters' pasts and they become mere automatons for a resolution that is telegraphed all the way from the middle of the book.
The action is thrilling, many people get killed or seriously injured but the loose threads hanging at the end of the book are simply unforgivable. What happens to Samuel? What exactly happens to Ricky Timmons at the national park? What was the result of the test at the end of the book, something that seems to have been cribbed from the finale of Tom Clancy's PATRIOT GAMES?
How did Jacob Stanns get ahold of a police ID and how did he and Patrick Logan even meet since the former lived in WV and the latter in Pittsburgh? Aren't there enough thugs in Pittsburgh so the crime bosses don't have to import muscle from the sticks? And how does a supposedly canny crime boss suddenly get stupid enough to go back to a federal crime scene to meet with the accomplice of a kidnapper he'd hired (with kid in tow)?
And what DA in his or her right mind would simply throw out an ironclad case in which a person attempts to rob a bank, resists arrest and fires a gun at a crowd? And, in the Martins's case, the legal resolution wasn't even addressed- Their problems just seem to have vanished as if the reader can take it on Gilstrap's blind faith that federal prosecutors are soft-hearted public servants who are willing to look the other way at manslaughter and possible kidnapping charges.
With the conflict still far from being resolved, the reader looks at the page number, then at the last page and realizes that only about 80 or so pages remain for Gilstrap to resolve all these myriad details and when one sees that he doesn't (he wastes his dwindling space and time dawdling in Samuel's mind about how his father was killed), one has to wonder if his editor at Pocket Books gave him enough time to finish the final draft. The denouement is one of the most telescoped I've ever seen and the ending, while mildly thrilling, left me feeling cheated and unsatisfied.
The reason why I'm giving EVEN STEVEN three stars is because Gilstrap's writing seems to have improved over the indulgences that occasionally mar NATHAN'S RUN and AT ALL COSTS. Once again, Gilstrap is pragmatic, world-weary, and amusingly cynical. He shifts POV and narrator voice expertly (Samuel's simple-minded narrator, in a way, reminds me of The Digger's in Deaver's THE DEVIL'S TEARDROP).
Overall, despite its initial promise, EVEN STEVEN is a thin, anemic effort that doesn't match up to NATHAN'S RUN or even AT ALL COSTS. I hope that John Gilstrap takes greater care with his next effort, SCOTT FREE.
A gory but wonderful debut Reviewer: Robert Crawford from Hudson, MA
As other reviewers have noted, it's continually surprising to realize that the author of one of the most American and accomplished crime thrillers in recent years is actually an Irish journalist. John Connolly only rarely shows his Irish, lyrical side in passages such as this, on page two: "There is a light breeze blowing and my coattails play at my legs like the hands of children."
And so begins a descent into an unforgettable tale of madness. Connolly expertly engages the reader from the first page by interspersing two POVs of his main character: Charlie "Bird" Parker in the present tense, his italicized past tense account of the night Parker found the horribly mutilated corpses of his wife and child, and the third impersonal voice of the police report. At first, the reader may suspect that the present tense POV is that of the killer and perhaps Connolly may have counted on this to further shrink the gap between the evil mind and its analogue.
The Traveling Man is one of the more intriguing serial killers in latter day fiction, one drawn with the skill of an established master of the genre. The identity of the killer is a true surprise, not a mean feat considering today's sophisticated reader, although the clues are placed throughout the book with the judiciousness of an M. Night Shyamalan.
It should be noted that the murder scenes should not be read by those with weak stomachs and there aren't too many books that come to memory requiring such an advisory. But just when the jaded reader thinks that every atrocity has already been committed by real life killers or imagined by novelists, John Connolly has come from Ireland with a unique perspective on the genre. Perhaps Connolly's outsider mentality is what separates EVERY DEAD THING from many of the serial killer books being penned by lesser-talented American authors.
It made me groan to see Connolly, as with his literary grandfathers Hammett and Chandler, continually putting his protagonist in film noir situations; at one point I was half-expecting Parker to find another mangled corpse on his way to the bathroom. The body count and bewildering array of killers (Oh no, the Traveling Man isn't the only one) may turn off readers with milder sensibilities and not as easily-suspended disbeliefs.
The two main plots remained separated for too long, which risks inspiring boredom and impatience in the reader. There are also far too many male characters in the book, especially the cops, and despite the book's length, Connolly didn't take enough care with their delineation to make them very distinctive to the reader. Angel and Louis, the gay hit men, are certainly a breath of fresh air and are treated with the dignity they deserve.
Connolly's Parker cracks wise with the best of them and the jokes tend to be better and funnier than Robert Parker's Spenser. "Bird" Parker is a reluctant PI in the mold of Easy Rawlins or Troy Soos's Mickey Rawlings but he is a much better delineated character than either and still better than most in the too-vast detective universe. Parker is an unimaginably tortured man, one who has no problem going over the line and taking a life with the tenuous ability go back to the side of compassion. With clipped and bloodied wings, he is an earthbound enforcer for St. Jude.
I hope that the next two books will be more judiciously edited. Only Connolly's ferocious wit and sheer mastery of plot advancement kept this book from being a midlist beach thriller. This highly intelligent and erudite novel, with its unusually poetic cops and FBI agents, is some of the best entertainment you can buy for its price. I fully intend on following the series.
New story, same ending... Reviewer: Robert Crawford from Hudson, MA
Jeffery Deaver is pretty much in the top tier of male commercial authors who write imperiled women suspense novels. I'm thinking, of course, of the Rune series, SPEAKING IN TONGUES, A MAIDEN'S GRAVE, PRAYING FOR SLEEP, etc. Michael Prescott, who specializes in this motif and always had in his previous incarnation, is in the second tier and may be working his way up.
Anyone who remembers MORTAL PURSUIT will see similarities between Trish Robinson and C.J. Osborn. Both are imperiled female officers who share a frightening childhood incident- Both were stalked and almost killed by a "boogeyman."
The opening chapter was exceptionally done, I thought, one that cannot help but nudge memories that we've all had as children, of monsters under our bed and closets, faces at the top of the stairs, and assorted creaks and bumps in the night. However, CJ's encounter with the boogeyman is a real one and the disturbing phenomenon of child home abductions and subsequent homicides constantly in the news these days, one that seems to take place in FINAL BREATH's venue, gives the book perhaps an unintentional added emotional impact just as Shirley Kennett's FIRECRACKER related to schoolyard violence.
Fast forward sixteen years later. CJ Osborn is a gutsy, capable LAPD officer who's nonetheless shadowed by her childhood demon both literally and psychologically. Unlike Alex Kava's Maggie O'Dell, who in SPLIT SECOND is paranoid and hypervigilant to the point of hysteria, CJ's character is sensitively drawn and only watches out for her boogeyman out of the corner of her eye.
Of course, with a Deaver-esque twist, CJ is pursued by not one maniac but two. The final confrontation with the first one is quite reminiscent of the DIE HARD-like venue of Prescott's last novel, THE SHADOW HUNTER (in fact, Prescott even admitted to me that he was thinking of that movie as he wrote that scene in TSH) and the eponymous denouement involving the real boogeyman of CJ's past was generic and uninspired at best, calling to mind countless other endgame scenes featured in WATCH ME, CATCH ME, SPLIT SECOND, Prescott's own STEALING FACES (IMO, still the best book he's produced), THE SHADOW HUNTER, etc.
The language didn't seem as inspired as in Prescott's earlier efforts, the storyline didn't seem particularly original and I hope that Prescott's next venture, NEXT VICTIM, will prove to be more exciting and provocative than its bland title.
Dark Side of the Womb Reviewer: Robert Crawford from Hudson, MA September 17, 2002
To the casual reader, it would appear as if Stephen King had produced the lazy, indulgent book about his experiences as a writer that one would eventually expect from an author of his celebrity. However, the more alert purveyor of ON WRITING will realize that Mr. King is, not very arguably, the most celebrated and commercially successful author of the last 30 years, one who certainly knows the value of backstory, foreshadowing, characterization and plot, and that, if he's giving way to indulgences, there's an ulterior motive that eventually pays in practical dividends.
This book starts off with King's earliest memories, which begin when his and his brother Dave's father had just abandoned the family and his mother had to struggle through one move and menial job after another to support her two troublesome boys. Reading of King's misfortunes with cribbing a Poe story and passing it off as his own (the fact that Poe's work was obviously already in the public domain notwithstanding and irrelevant), writing for a homemade newspaper masterminded by his restless brother Dave and creating a satirical version of the high school paper makes one marvel at how writers of all levels of success have common experiences. While in junior high, I had excoriated the student body and faculty alike with a multi-page document that almost gotten me mauled by a frighteningly large gym teacher who was one of the subjects of my alleged wit but who was not frightening enough to quench my instinct for satire (King assures us that he was cured of the Petronius Arbiter Bug). Anyone who's ever wanted to hack into their job's mainframe and sabotage the company's online newsletter will understand exactly where King is coming from. When admitting that people tell every creative being, including himself, that they're wasting their talent, King is immediately sharing a bond among the community of not just writers but all artists in general. On the flip side, King is also careful to tell us of the pearls of practical and seminal wisdom that he had likewise learned from his elders, including his supportive, if sometimes bewildered, mother.
The book continues with Uncle Fazza's handmade toolbox, which King uses as a metaphor or synecdoche for the tools of the writer. King advises, as did his uncle who'd dragged the heavy wooden toolbox outside only to use a screwdriver to fix a screen, that it's a good habit to get into because you never know when you'll need other tools. His other advice, such as attacking the white page aggressively and with feeling, even desperation, is not as innovative as the reader would hope but there are countless other nuggets of wisdom for which workshop students would pay hundreds of dollars with perhaps half the wisdom. King even gives the reader and aspiring writer an intriguing writing exercise and invites them to tell him the results on www.stephenking.com. In this section, King also gives us an indication of how he can turn a mildly interesting headline into an interesting storyline into then a great storyline with a simple twist of perception or a reversal of the facts.
At the end of the book, King lets us look over his shoulder while he's in his "closed door", or first draft, phase. First, he presents a rough draft of a short story followed by a holograph of the revised copy, handwritten interlineations and all, giving us a keyhole glimpse into the workings of his creative mind, something for which most other authors have too much hubris. King, however, gives the reader the impression that his self-deprecation and lack of artistic seriousness and high mindedness is sincere and he lets us see him first thing in the morning, unshaven, hair mussed, still wearing his droopy socks and wrinkled underwear.
ON WRITING is not to be mistaken for an autobiography or as a textbook on the craft of writing. It is both and neither. King did a masterful job in inextricably entwining and perfectly balancing the relationship between life and writing that makes this book, in some ways moreso than his earlier DANSE MACABRE, an invaluable document for both the novice and seasoned pro alike. It is a short, inspiring and humorous literary autobiography that generously allows us to see what the NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW and King's publicity agent does not, the failings, foulups, and foibles of who is perhaps the most lionized author of modern times.
Ugly old men with guns September 8, 2002
For a book that takes place in Mississippi, Stephen Hunter's PALE HORSE COMING reads remarkably like a Larry McMurty western or plays like a Magnificent Seven movie.
This motif, of assembling a group of misfit specialists in a bloody campaign against an evil greater than any one of them, can work very well if treated well and Hunter generally manages to make this second Earl Swagger book entertaining if hardly ever plausible.
Hunter, a movie critic with the Washington Post, couldn't have not been thinking of COOL HAND LUKE while writing this typical shoot 'em up. Big Boy, for instance, must've had some inspiration from the silent sunglassed enforcer in that classic prison movie.
Hunter seems to have taken a bunch of manly literary conceits and put them together to evoke some emotional, visceral response from the men for whom this book was obviously written, i.e. prisoner breaks out of prison and comes back to destroy prison (RAMBO II), assembling a bunch of specialists in the violent arts (old movie buffs will greatly enjoy his depiction of who is obviously Audie Murphy) who help the hero dismantle the prison (THE SEVEN SAMURAI, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN RIDE!, THE DIRTY DOZEN, etc.).
Still, the gunplay is addictive to read, the evil plausibly real (anyone recall Joseph Mengele, the Nazi angel of death, and his Japanese counterparts?), and the heroes righteous enough to make this a damned good summer read. The old man's death from natural causes after blowing away almost a half dozen guys with cobra-like speed just moments earlier was a bit melodramatic but that's a small price to pay for enjoying this not-too-bad Swagger novel. Let's hope that this isn't the end of the line for the Swagger family.
Worst mystery... EVER. Reviewer: Robert Crawford from Hudson, MA
Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta ought not be dismissed lightly. She ought to be escorted out by security, strip-searched and scrutinized while cleaning out her desk then be served with a restraining order, to be followed up with a visit from a contract killer.
THE BODY FARM was my first and final Kay Scarpetta mystery. I was intrigued by the lure of the title, which is the unofficial name for an actual forensic laboratory in Tennessee. Instead of the gripping introduction to what is perhaps one of the three most famous mystery series extant, I came across one red herring after another.
The Body Farm itself takes up less than an entire chapter of this book in which Cornwell was clearly coasting. Instead of merely suckering the reader into thinking that this fascinating laboratory actually takes center stage in this stillborn effort, Cornwell should've done just this. How difficult would it have been to incorporate the Body Farm and Lyall Shade into a few more chapters?
Another red herring is Temple Gault, which Cornwell drew in for his apparent drawing power from earlier installments in the series. But this, too, turns out to be a dead end and the reader is treated instead to a brief improbable glimpse of Temple Gault at a mall featuring The Simpson's Comic Book Guy, which turns out to be another red herring.
The murder of Emily Steiner promises a rousing, intriguing mystery that unfortunately gets lost in a welter of confusing subplots, such as Scarpetta's inexplicable affair with a married FBI agent with children, Marino's even more inexplicable desire to become Sheriff Andy Taylor in a small North Carolina town, which requires him to abandon his duties to his actual superiors with impunity, who also turn a misty, blind eye to Marino getting emotionally involved with a principle in a homicide investigation. How about Kay's niece Lucy's improbable setup at ERF and her complete reinstatement after her aunt proves her innocence with the help of a US Senator, which also has nothing much to do with the main plot?
Scarpetta would raise my hackles even if she was not the ventriloquist dummy for Cornwell's obviously republican bias. A character who's a doctor AND a lawyer would be hard enough to pull off, especially if the author was neither (as Cornwell, for instance), but Dr. Scarpetta's character has the personality of an H & R Block sign on a dimly lit street. She is like one of those animatronic figures at Disney World that one wishes would run amuck a la WESTWORLD to relieve itself and its spectator of the sense of dreariness that she drags after her like a bad body odor.
Cornwell is not as talented as, say, John Gilstrap in disguising a troubling conservative bias that would do Strom Thurmond proud and she shows this in her uncannily incorrect depiction of southerners and lesbians. I hated, Hated, HATED this book and Cornwell to the point where I'm taking it personally.
Enjoy! Let me know what you think. My email address is Crawman2@yahoo.com