****Four out of Five Stars Review by: Mark Palm Perhaps it’s a byproduct of the violence of American society, but too often in thrillers, both in cinema and in books, writers feel that they can only transfix and hold our attention by a steady escalation in violence and an ever-higher body count. When characters are made of straw it’s all too easy to mow them down like such, and no-one pays any mind. In The Trespasser Tana French does the opposite, and reminds us, with depth and care, that one life has enormous meaning, and that one death can resonate with surprising circumstances and broad effect. The Trespasser is set in the Dublin Murder Squad, and features Detective Antoinette Conway, for whom, like many police, feel that the Murder Squad is the peak of their profession. Conway is a woman in a man’s world, and as smart and aggressive as she is, her time in the Murder Squad has been nothing but an endless series of pranks, insults and harassment that makes her believe that any day may be her last. In this atmosphere Conway ends up as the lead on her first big case, along with her partner, Stephen Moran, and both are almost disappointed that the case seems like a simple domestic dispute gone wrong. A young woman named Aislinn Murray is found dead in her home, seemingly from a blow to the head. A dinner for two is set on the table, and she appeared to have a date with a bookstore owner named Rory Fallon. On the surface it seems simple, but one after another of the obvious hypotheses falls apart. Other members of the squad, especially the menacing Breslin, seem unusually eager to nail Fallon, and the victim, Aislinn, is familiar to Conway, but the detective cannot remember from where. Once she digs into her past Conway finds an iron will masked beneath an almost cliched version of femininity. This depth is one of Ms. French’s greatest strengths. It’s not that difficult for a skilled plotter to create twists and turns, but it takes an expert to make them both surprising and inevitable, and here the author does it again and again. Just when I thought I could see where things were going a small turn would catch me unawares; such as the similarities between Conway’s past and Aislinn’s. At first the two women really seem as different as night and day, but the eventual parallels between them rise from circumstance naturally, with nuance and care, and never once feels forced or fake. Character is another place where Ms. French shines. All of the characters have depth and insight, but also a certain distance that Ms. French uses to keep us on our heels. Even Conway, who narrates the book, and whose point of view informs us, remains a bit of a mystery. The parts of Conway that we do see , and her first-person voice ,help bring a brisk and unstinting energy to the book. The detective’s voice seems unstudied and casual, but Ms. French wrings great nuance from it. I found it particularly effective when read aloud, a test that many novels do not pass. Brash, fearless, and smart, Conway brings an exuberance to the process of being a cop, particularly during the interrogation scenes, that make us feel for her plight without ever making us feel pity for the way her squad treats her. It seems shameful enough to deprive someone who does her job with as much passion as Conway that Ms. French can keep her as abrasive as she wants, and made Conway even more real than ever. That kind of forthright intelligence kept me from making any assumptions about where this book was headed,until the very end, which as I said earlier , is both surprising, and in a way, inevitable. That is about all you can ask from a thriller, and The Trespasser delivers. *****Five out of Five Stars Review by Mark Palm As a general rule I would never review the third book in a trilogy without reviewing the earlier books as well. Every now and then though, a work, or a series of works comes along that allows one to throw the rules out the window. The anti-authoritarian streak in me gets a hoot out of this, but more importantly these occasions mean that I have had an opportunity to undergo an unforgettable aesthetic experience, which I can now share with you. The City of Mirrors, the third book in the Passage Trilogy, by Justin Cronin, is such a book, as are its predecessors, The Passage, and The Twelve. The first two books are about 1,400 pages so giving you a detailed synopsis is out of the question. Basically the story swings from the present, where a science experiment gone awry induces an epidemic where the infected become a sort of vampire/zombie hybrid called “virals”, to the future, where small cities of the uninfected struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Now that is a story that is as old as the bible, really, and my choice of analogy is not an accident. From Amy, the first character we meet in the present, to the band of friends whose story makes up the bulk of the plot, all of the narrative is bound together by a far-future commentary that is deliberately Biblical, and sees this tale of destruction and survival almost as a creation-myth. There have been a load of mediocre SF novels that have used similar plots, but as Joseph Campbell has pointed out, there are only so many stories. That comparison is also made with purpose, because this work is truly epic in scope, but also deeply grounded in reality, so you can see hear and feel every experience that Mr. Cronin creates with extraordinary tactile specificity. What makes The Passage Trilogy so special is the execution. Mr. Cronin’s prose is beautiful, and he uses it to bring his characters to life in a way that I have seldom experienced. A few pages into the first chapter of the first book, which tells of Amy and her mother, simply broke my heart. And Mr. Cronin manages to sustain that level for just about two thousand pages, and many many characters. That’s why I am raving about this series. When you toss in thrilling action, a wonderfully sculpted plot and an epic story spanning hundreds of years, well, I guess I’m talking about a masterpiece, a phrase that I do not use lightly. In The City of Mirrors Mr Cronin continues to do the seemingly impossible, in that he wraps up a ton of characters and an immense landscape of action in a truly moving and totally successful finale. The story picks up after the end of The Twelve, and mostly follows the characters the I have come to know and care for since the first book; Peter, Sara, Hollis, Michael, Kate, and of course, Alicia. I had to add that “of course” because of all the memorable character that Mr. Cronin has created, I believe that Alicia is one of those few, and very rare ones that will live on in my mind for a very long time. As in the previous novels the action jumps into the future, but for the first time in the series Mr. Cronin finally takes us deep into the character that started it all, Patient Zero, aka Timothy Fanning, the first vampire. Timothy's story took me awhile to get into, because while it was on a very human scale it’s hard to muster much sympathy for a person whom almost dooms the entire human race because of some unresolved romantic issues. Eventually though, when mixed with the plotline of Amy, who is really the center of this whole tale, along with Alicia and the stories of all of the other characters who strive with so much love and dignity in the face of so much death and destruction, it all comes together in the end. If that last sentence didn’t give you a clue, let me say it here; this book and the ones that preceded it, are not escapist. This is a series that deals with death, and sadness, and horrific tragedy, but in the end it is about the love that forms when people come together to battle horrific odds and terrible adversity, and discover that in the end redemption and freedom can be found, through caring, kindness, and love. Get this book, and the first two as well. I promise that you will satisfied. Next time out, I will just be reviewing a book, and not preaching. This is an aberration. Until the next earth-shaking novel I read.
****Five out of Five Stars
Review by: Mark Palm In a previous review I mentioned that I could count on two hands the number of series that I had read where each book in the series rocked my world. After reading the latest installment of The Huntress Series, Bitter Moon, I will say this: I can count on one hand the number of series where each book not only rocked my world, but where the sum total of the books manages to be something even better than the individual parts. I hope that this exemplifies how much I enjoyed this book because I consider this a must read book for readers of this website. For those of you who have not read my earlier reviews The Huntress Series is basically the story of Cara Lindstrom, a young woman whose entire family, save herself, was killed by a serial killer when Cara was a child. Forever changed by this, Cara, for lack of a better word, becomes a vigilante who kills men who prey upon women. Matthew Roarke, an FBI agent and former profiler who specializes in serial killers, becomes aware of, and eventually obsessed with Cara. The previous chapter is a kind of Reader’s Digest condensed novel version of the first three books, but it gives you a basic idea of what you need to know about the fourth book in this series. Bitter Moon starts with Roarke, now on leave, trying to figure out what to do with his life. Cara’s escape and a phone message from a detective connected to Cara’s past draw Roarke into an investigation of an unsolved murder that could hold the key that solves the question of what made Cara into the woman she is today. The story splits into two narratives; one dealing with Cara at age 14, as she confronts the implacable personification of evil that she simply refers to as It for the first time since her family was killed and the other about Roarke investigating the same events in the present. The author, Alexandra Sokoloff, gives a master class in plotting as she flawlessly weaves the two stories together, generating an extraordinary amount of suspense as we see Cara becoming The Huntress as she struggles to defend herself and and revenge two other girls, one who committed suicide and another who died after being attacked by a serial rapist and murderer. Roarke is shown in a new light, as he has to act without the official might of the FBI behind him, but his task is small compared with what Cara has to overcome, and it is in this portrayal where Ms. Sokoloff truly shines. Just out of a maximum-security juvenile detention center (aka prison) and living in a group foster home, Cara, with a few exceptions, the group home director Ms. Sharonda, and a nun named Mother Doctor, is completely alone. Yet Cara finds the strength not only to survive, but she decides to try and seek justice for all of the girls who have been wronged in a world where all of the odds seem to be stacked against them. Ms. Sokoloff depicts Cara’s journey with astounding grace and courage, and with a righteous anger against a system that seems not only broken, but almost irredeemably flawed. Yet for all of this Cara’s story, and Roake’s as well, is one of hope, because both of them refuse to see wrongs being done. Both of them have decided to act. If all of this is not enough Bitter Moon is a absolute nail-biting thriller. The twisting plot and the propulsive story kept me flipping the pages while Ms. Sokoloff’s prose made me slow down and savor each page, particularly in the scenes where Cara finds peace in the desert landscapes of California. Seeing Cara, a young girl alone in an uncaring world, finding peace and solace in Nature, gave me hope. And that is what makes Bitter Moon such an amazing novel. Ms. Sokoloff is unflinching in her portrayal of a world full of injustice and unfairness, not as long as women like Cara are out there, there is hope.
BEF: In our first interview we spoke of how ambitious a project The Huntress series has been. When you conceived it did you know where the story was going to go, or did it grow organically?
AS: The storyline for the series coalesced in a thunderclap moment when I was listening to Lee Child speak at the San Francisco Bouchercon (after I’d just heard Val McDermid and Denise Mina in conversation, which set the scene….). At that moment I knew the action of the first two books, roughly. But beyond that, I had no clue. It’s grown as I get deeper into the characters and the world. BEF: One of the things I have really enjoyed in The Huntress series is the wonderful plot structure. In Bitter Moon Roarke is investigating events that happened 16 years ago to Cara, and ends up as an investigation that is taking place in the present. How did you execute that idea? Did you write Cara’s story, then Roarke’s, or did you bounce back and forth? AS: Thank you! You don’t know how relieved I am to have pulled it off this time. I was definitely bouncing back and forth between the two. And some parts of it took ages to get right. It took lots and lots of drafts and the help of a REALLY good copyeditor. Now, of course, it feels like it was always that way. Hah. BEF: In Huntress Moon I saw Roarke as a kind of a gateway character; the story starts from his point of view, but it was always Cara’s story. In Bitter Moon Roarke is literally following Cara’s lead. Can you comment on how the narrative has evolved? AS: Roarke is definitely a gateway character. I was a screenwriter before I was a novelist, and working in hyper-sexist Hollywood I got very clever about telling stories that had ostensibly male leads but were really all about these fascinating women. Similarly in the Huntress series, Roarke is the male gaze on Cara, but – he’s a very “woke” kind of guy. It doesn’t take him long at all to get terribly conflicted about having to hunt her. And that is a wonderfully painful moral and erotic tension. But that dynamic played out, intensifying over the first three books, and at that point I just thought everyone – Roarke, my readers, me – needed a break from it. I toyed with doing a prequel but I thought it would be so much more interesting to do a dual timeline that was actually about the two of them solving the same case at the same time. Because, you know, I have to be as hard on myself as I possibly can be or I don’t feel like I’m doing my job. The separation in time allowed Roarke to get even deeper into Cara’s life, her mission, and her head, but in a completely non-sexual way. Because if knowing someone is the ultimate intimacy, isn’t knowing them as a child the most sacred kind of intimacy of all? BEF: The landscapes in the series are wonderfully evocative, particularly Cara’s relationship with the desert. How important do you think a sense of place is in your work? AS: Place is huge. The whole series is about California – about the West Coast, but primarily about California. And something Roarke and Cara have in common is their profound connection with nature and the environment. It’s kind of the only thing that keeps either of them relatively sane. (Okay, right, “sane” probably isn’t a word I can use re: Cara! But the desert is a place of deep spirituality and it’s very much a part of who she is.) Place is one of the most important aspects of all my books, and scripts. My background in theater and film taught me that setting is an external manifestation of the characters and themes of the story. BEF: Cara is an amazing character. To me she seems like a bundle of contradictions that rings true. One one hand she is entirely present in the physical world, noticing details like the floor-plans of buildings, and exit-routes, and on the other she can sense evil and has a quasi-mystical relationship with the moon. How many of these characteristics are invented, and how many are like those found in women who have suffered from trauma similar to Cara? AS: Cara is physically present and aware in the way that any law enforcement professional has to be. She and Roarke are twins that way (and many others). Trauma can produce that kind of hyper-vigilance in survivors, for sure. But law enforcement professionals are also hyper-aware of bad intent in people – it’s called Blue Sense (or in the UK – Copper Sense.) And you’re right, the other side of her is that mystical connection with earth, nature, the moon, the tides. She’s a pagan, she’s a witch, she’s a goddess. Which all women actually are, if they stop and feel it – and it doesn’t have anything to do with trauma. It’s who we are, at the core of our beings. That part of her was her salvation from trauma. BEF: The world of The Huntress series is violent. Cara has suffered enormous trauma, and the women and children she protects do as well, yet your portrayal of that is never gratuitous, which is one of the things I most admire about these books. How do you walk that tightrope? And why is it so important? AS: It’s pretty easy not to be gratuitous because I don’t step into the point of view of sadists, which a troubling percentage of films, TV shows and books do. I couldn’t care less about getting into the Reaper’s head, for example. I loathe scenes like that in books and film, from the POV of the male serial killer or hit man – those are almost always laughably ridiculous psychologically, and usually verge on torture porn, or explicitly become torture porn. Cara doesn’t get any pleasure at all from killing – it’s just something she has to do. So the reader, who experiences these things from her point of view, doesn’t get to experience pleasure from the violence, either. And the rest of the violence is about showing, in as stark but also as brief a way as possible, the horrendous systemic and individual abuses of women and children in our society. When you focus on the victims, gratuitous doesn’t come into the picture. It’s horrifying. It’s tragic. And hopefully it’s enraging enough to inspire action. BEF: One of the central themes of The Huntress series is about the way that the criminal justice system deals with rape, prostitution, human trafficking and the juvenile justice system. I know that you are a writer, and not a politician, but what suggestions can you make so that we as a society can address these crucial problems? AS: We could have not elected a sexual predator to the presidency. That would have helped a whole fucking lot. We had the chance to elect an extraordinarily competent and experienced politician who has made it her life’s work to advocate for and empower women and children. Someone who GETS it. Instead, we have someone who DOES it himself. The pussy-grabber-in-chief. Now we’re faced with having to work about a million times harder. But it’s not an optional fight. And now it’s not going to happen through our “leaders” so WE have to step up. So pick a cause that fights violence against women and children. Contribute to it, promote it. I have a list of foundations and organizations I support on my website, here (http://axsokoloff.blogspot.com/2016/10/take-action-against-sexual-assault-and.html trafficking): rescue organizations, anti-child exploitation organizations, rape and incest hotlines, etc. And never, never allow anyone to be sexually harassed, threatened or exploited in your presence. More than ever now. Speak out. Fight. Don’t give predators a free pass. In the meantime, I’m afraid Cara has a whole lot more work to do. Purchase on Amazon (click book image)***** Five out of Five Stars Review by: Mark Palm Once again I am stepping into fairly-uncharted territory by reviewing the second book in a series without having done the same for the first one. This book however, Stiletto, by Daniel O’Malley is so good that I decided that it was worth it. The first book in this series, The Rook, ( which is every bit as good as it’s sequel, and I heartily urge you to read it), is a supernatural thriller with a tight plot, great characters, and it managed to be tense, scary and often surprisingly funny, often all at the same time. It is the story of Myfanwy (rhymes with Tiffany) Thomas, who wakes up in a London park with no memory, suffering from a serious beating, and surrounded by dead men in suits wearing latex gloves. In her pocket os a letter from her former self, warning her that she she is in serious danger and offering her two choices; run away and live a peaceful, happy life, or return to her former identity and found out who betrayed her, and gave her amnesia. She chooses the latter, and discovers that she is a high-ranking member of The Checquy, A Rook, in Her Majesty’s Supernatural Secret Service, a secret organization of people with metahuman powers, Myfanwy included. Aided only by the letters from her former self Myfanwy returns to her job, which is to protect Great Britain from supernatural horrors, and battle their nemesis, The Grafters, a scientific Brotherhood of super-surgeons who manipulate flesh and bone and DNA with astounding results, whom they have been battling for centuries. Without ruining The Rook I will say that Stiletto begins where The Rook ends, with The Checquy and The Grafters trying to end the Cold War that they have been waging for centuries. We start by meeting Pawn Felicity Clement, a member of one of the Checquy elite strike teams, and Odette Leliefeld, a young woman who is a member of the Grafter aristocracy. Felicity is tasked with guarding Odette while the two secret societies meet to try and arrange a truce to their long-running battle. Needless to say there are a lot of people on both sides who are wary of the peace treaty; imagine the KGB and the CIA trying to bury the hatchet and merge. Members of both sides are still keeping secrets, and someone seems intent on not only sabotaging the negotiations but on killing Rook Thomas. There is much, much more afoot than I can describe; the plot is like a set of nesting dolls, stories resting in other stories. Mr. O’Malley ‘s prose is smooth and he has a real knack for action sequences that are as clear as they are thrilling. His dialogue is fresh and often funny, and his inventiveness seemingly knows no bounds. Even in the most dire parts of Stiletto, when people are fighting for their lives, and sometimes failing, their is an almost manic sense of originality. I can imagine Mr. O’Malley almost cackling as he unspools one crazy idea after another, and in such a polished way that it still seems real. The same can be said of the characters; there are a ton of them, and most of them have astounding abilities, but they all seem grounded as the people you meet when sharing an elevator ride. The three main characters, Myfanwy, Felicity and Odette and sterling examples. While each has astounding special abilities they are three-dimensional, with real-world problems and concerns. I have to give a special nod to the author for making his three leads women, and kick-ass women, without once ever making a big deal about it. Time and time again in Stiletto there are scenes where these three women are performing above and beyond the call, and I thought of that wonderful quote about why Ginger Rogers was so great; she did everything that Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high-heels. To top it off not a single one of them seems to looking for, or needing a man to make their lives complete. It’s the icing on the cake of a book that you really need to read.
****Four out of Five Stars
Review by: Mark Palm By now I have reviewed enough books by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child on this site that I should no longer have to tell you how I feel about them. Take my word that they are the authors of some of the best scientific and historically erudite thrillers, full of twisting plots and nonstop excitement, ever. The Obsidian Chamber is the sixteenth book in the Pendergast Series, and while they all stand alone, why deny ourselves the pleasure? If you can’t read them all, at least get the last two; Blue Labyrinth and Crimson Shore. The latter book found Pendergast and his ward/companion Constance Green caught in an ever-widening investigation that started with a rather ingenious theft, and spread outward in many directions until in encapsulated the entire small New England town of Exmouth, and involved starvation, witchcraft and mass murder. The shocking end was a true cliff-hanger with Pendergast apparently swept away into the Atlantic along with the villain Morax. The Obsidian Chamber begins two weeks after Pendergast has disappeared, and Constance Green, stricken with grief, is wandering the cavernous house at Riverside Drive like a ghost. Until she is kidnapped by someone who looks astoundingly like Pendergast’s seemingly-deceased and monstrously evil brother, Diogenes. Procter, Pendergast’s assistant/bodyguard follows in a wonderfully tense non-stop pursuit from Newfoundland to Ireland to Namibia. Unfortunately for Proctor, the kidnapping seems like an elaborate ruse, and Constance is still back at Riverside, and someone seems to be entering into an unusual courtship with her and intent on drawing her out from her self-imposed exile. Constance realized that someone is living in the house without her consent, and a taut game of cat-and-mouse ensues. Meanwhile the surprises just keep on coming, such as the discovery of a half-dead man with white hair in a shredded black suit, who was found floating in the Atlantic Ocean. Several other revelations that have serious ramifications for all of the characters in this series keep unfolding, and as is often the case in these books, nothing is as it seems to be. For all of the high drama and suspense never once did I feel like I was being tricked or duped in a superficial way. The plot, well constructed and as twisted as a slinky, is full of emotional bombshells, rocking many of these characters to their core. It was wonderful to see Proctor stepping into a larger and more meaningful role, and Constance, once again has proven that she is a dominant character; even as we come to know her more and more, at her core she is still an enigma. If ever there was a character who is ready to step into a starring role in a novel of her own, it is Constance. The ending of the novel is satisfying, and yet still leaves open a seemingly endless amount of future plot-lines for the authors to develop in the future. After sixteen novels I can still say that I am eagerly looking forward to reading the next installment of this wonderful series. And if you haven’t started you better hurry if you want to catch up.
A Hundred Thousand Worlds by: Bob Proehl****Four Out of Five Stars Review by Mark Palm One of the things that surprises people who rarely read comics, is how serious they often are. The days of long-underwear clad men saving the world from similarly clad villains is long gone, as out of date as gazogenes and spats. I am certainly not ready to say that every issue of every comic from Marvel and DC and the multitude of other companies out there churning out titles should be compared to Anna Karenina, but I will grant that there is an enormous amount of titles being published with varying degrees of intent, some being amusing fodder, and some that are deadly serious. One need only look at the box-office receipts of super-hero films to see how big the business has become, aside from artistic merit. The influence that comics have had upon other forms of artistic expression are still being felt, and will doubtless be even greater in the future. Hundred Thousand Worlds by Bob Proehl is the story of Valerie Torrey, the former star of an X Files type show, and her son Alex. Valerie is taking her son to Los Angeles to meet his father, her former co-star. The two were married, but after tragedy and betrayal Valerie fled with her son in tow. Now, obligated to share custody with Alex’s father, she reluctantly agrees to take him there. On her way west she is prolonging her journey and making some extra cash by stopping off at several Comic/Science Fiction Conventions on the way. At the first Con she befriends Gail, the only female writer for a Major Comic Company, as well as Fred and Brett, a writer and artist who produce an independent title. Also along for the ride are a group a female models who are paid to dress up as famous comic heroes, and act as a kind of Greek chorus to the scenes between Gail and Val, as two women in a field dominated by men. The crux of the story is The relationship between Val and her son as they slowly head toward Los Angeles, where Val will lose custody of Alex, and Mr. Proehl tells their story with tenderness and power. Gail’s role, as she struggles to find her identity and create original contents brings a wonderful counterpoint to the tale. Some time is also spent on the relationship between Fred and Brett, and the ties that develop between Brett and Alex and Brett and one of the models. The poignancy and sadness of the main story is leavened by the author’s obvious love and familiarity with the worlds of the industry, the fans, and how they interact at the conventions. The dialogue is wonderful, and often hilarious, and Mr. Proehl show’s a chameleon-like ability to step inside the skin of various characters, giving each one a distinctive voice. I particularly enjoyed Mr. Proehl’s exuberant invention in creating fictional versions of Marvel and DC characters, and creators, that mirror and also poke sly fun at their decedents. Even if you are not familiar with the real writers and artists they are based ,(loosely), upon, they are drawn with care and compassion. If you have never been to a convention, and I urge you to go to at least one if you have not, you could just read this novel. Mr. Proehl really gets the atmosphere down to a tee, with details that show both the best and the worst that such events feature. What made this novel resonate so much for me was the way the Mr. Proehl examines and explores the way that creative people, actors and writers and artists, interact both with each other,and with the worlds that they create, and how the dynamic of each reflects and relates with the other. So read A Hundred Thousand Worlds instead of going to see the next big comic-book movie. You’ll be glad that you did. The Dark Missions of Edgar Brim By Mark Palm *** Three out of five stars One of the things that I enjoy the most about reading fiction is that it gives you a chance to step into another world, different from your own, that lets you experience a myriad of emotions without changing your own reality. I have often wished that these other worlds were real so I could enjoy their wonders, and I know countless others feel the same way. Innumerable people wish they could attend Hogwarts, or live in Hobbiton. Would you feel the same way, however, if Voldemort had killed your parents, or if the Nazgul were hounding you? That is the essential premise of The Dark Missions of Edgar Brim, by Shane Peacock. Edgar Brim is a sensitive young boy who seems to fear everything, even the scary stories that his father secretly reads at night, which somehow give him night terrors, even though he cannot hear them. After the sudden death of his father, Edgar’s guardian, the stern Mr. Thorne, takes the typical Victorian tack and decides to toughen up the boy by sending him to a boarding school on the Scottish moors that he discovered while going through Edgar’s father's papers. Once there, Edgar meets two people who will forever affect and change his life; Professor Lear, and a student, Tiger Terry, (whom by, the way, absolutely steals the book.) This pair helps Edgar to find inner strength and determination, and most importantly help him come to understand the nature of his “gift” I am kind of stinting on the details here, but I am avoiding spoilers that give the plot much of its power. I can say that as Edgar grows into a young man he is made aware of an organization that believes that fictional “Monsters”, such as Frankenstein’s creation, and Dracula, actually exist and that the fictional versions are based on real beings. From there it’s just a small step and the three find themselves, along with Lear’s grandchildren, Jonathan and Lucy. (hmm…), hurtling around the British Isles searching from information and weapons to help them take down whatever it is they are hunting. The plot finally finds them investigating fledgling author Bram Stoker, who has yet to write his seminal work, and the infamous actor for whom he works, Henry Irving. All of the ingredients are here for an exceptional novel, but Mr. Peacock doesn't quite take it to the next level. The atmosphere and settings are spot on, and there is a subtle creepiness that pervades the book. The prose is solid, but the plot is a bit uneven, particularly near the end. The ending, in fact, is a flat-out cliffhanger that reads as if a huge novel was sliced in two right in the middle. As I said earlier, Tiger Terry leaps off of the page, so I know Mr. Peacock understands characters, but Edgar and the rest are serviceable without being notable. I liked this book and am recommending that you give it a shot, but with a tweak here and there I think that Mr. Peacock really could have had a blockbuster on his hands. **** 4 out of 5 Stars Review by: Mark Palm There are times when I read a book I don’t really think much about the title, unless it’s spectacularly good, or spectacularly bad. I’m sure that there are plenty of cases of good books not reaching the right audience because of a bad title, and one wonders what might have come of say, The Great Gatsby if it had been saddled with some of it’s awful working titles like Trimalchio in West Egg, or The High-Bouncing Lover. I bring this up because as far as titles go Redemption Road doesn’t seem particularly bad or good, until you get to the end of the book. Then I realized that John Hart not only knows how to bestow a good, apt title, but he has given us an exceptional novel as well. North Carolina Detective Elizabeth Black is under investigation for the shooting deaths of two men who kidnapped eighteen-year old Canning Shore, held her hostage and raped her. All police shootings are investigated, but Elizabeth is white, the two men were black and she fired eighteen rounds, which leaves the public, and her own department unsure of whether she is a hero or a killer, especially since Elizabeth will only speak of the barest details, even to her partner, Detective Charlie Beckett. To make things even more complicated for Elizabeth, ex-cop Adrian Wall is released from prison after serving thirteen years for the murder of Julia Strange, a married woman with whom he was having an affair. Despite overwhelming forensic evidence, Elizabeth believes Wall’s claim that he was innocent. As a young officer Elizabeth discovered Julia’s body, and formed a strong relationship with Julia’s son, Gideon Strange, now thirteen, helping to raise him as his father fell into a drunken stupor. The day that Wall, who suffered horrifically in prison is released, Gideon is shot while attempting to seek revenge upon Wall. Then a young woman’s body is found in the same place that Julia’s was years earlier, casting more doubt upon Wall. This is not quite as bad as it seems for Elizabeth, however, because Mr. Hart has earlier given us some passages, in a mysterious first-person narration, that point to someone else being the killer. Elizabeth also forms a similar relationship with Channing, but one that grows far more complex and nuanced as the story unfolds. Now if this seems like a complex plot with a lot of twists and turns, it is, and I have only given you the beginning, but Mr. Hart grounds his story by making the relationships between the character the heart of the matter. Each and every character is well thought out and believable, particularly Elizabeth, who is so real that you can reach out and touch her. As the rest of the novel plays out the plot and the relationships between these characters keeps growing more and more taut and tense, yet Mr. Hart never stoops to sensationalism, even as he pushes the boundaries of his plot to the breaking point. Redemption Road is not for the faint of heart; this is a story that is often brutal and heart-breaking, and Mr. Hart does not stint or turn away from the ugly realities of the material, but as the title suggests, if the reader hangs in there, and pays close attention, this is a novel this is ultimately about, who would have guessed, redemption. **** 4 out of 5 stars Review by: Mark Palm While not a typical academic work I would argue that Danse Macabre is an exceptional book about horror fiction, especially Stephen King’s concept of the three “tarot” cards of horror, which are central to many tales in the genre; the Werewolf, the Vampire, and the “Thing Without a Name.” I cannot go into these concepts with any depth here, but you can if you read the book, and I suggest that you do. The one “tarot” card he barely touches is that of the Ghost. Mr. King states that the Ghost is an Archetype, and a concept too vast to discuss in a limited space. Fellside, by M.R. Carey is not really a horror novel, although there are plenty of scares to be found; but it is a Ghost Story, if any novel ever was. Jess Moulson wakes up in a hospital bed, badly burned, with no memory of how she got there. In time she recalls that she is a heroin addict, and that her flat burned down, and she has been charged with murder, since the police claim that she deliberately set the fire, and it took the life of a little boy named Alex who lived one story above. Wracked with guilt, Jess sleepwalks through her trial, and is easily convicted and sentenced to Fellside, a maximum security prison on the Yorkshire Moors. When she was a child Jess had an unusually vivid imaginary friend, and claimed that she could walk into other people’s dreams. Now, in prison, without hope, she decides to starve to death. As she grows weaker and weaker she begins to be visited by a ghost, who she slowly comes to believe is Alex, the boy upstairs. Eventually she becomes convinced that she did not kill Alex, and that someone else did, and determined to discover who, she stops her slow suicide and begins to investigate Alex’s death and her own case, using her legal team. While this is happening Jess is finally released into the prison’s general population, and must deal with her reputation as a child-killer, which places her at the bottom rung of the convict population. At this point we are only about a third of the way into the novel, and Mr Carey is just getting warmed up. Fellside is one of those books were the reader’s knowledge grows alongside that of the main character, so to divulge much more would be unfair to the reader, but just let me say that Fellside is a startling hybrid that manages to incorporate aspects of several different genres without giving short shrift to any of them. Jess is essentially stuck in a dark and violent prison while trying to slowly piece together an arson investigation and feel her way through a supernatural/psychological mystery. While it would seem like handful Mr. Carey pulls it off, and one reason is the supporting cast. Each person caught up in the story, from the prisoners, to the prison guards and staff, to Jess’s legal team is a living breathing character, subject to change, and all varying shades of grey. Fellside is Jess's book however, and even that is a surprise that is deftly handed by Mr. Carey. At first Jess is as insubstantial as a ghost, but as the story progresses Jess comes more and more to life, until her courage and bravery and principals in the face of all but overwhelming odds makes her a true heroine. Every time I thought I knew where the plot was going Mr. Carey steered to somewhere else, and it was often because of new depths that were found in Jess. Read Fellside, but be prepared to be haunted. ****Four out of Five Stars. Review by: Mark Palm. Terra Incognita One of the things that made Alive by Scott Sigler such a joy to read was the very same thing that made it tough to review. It was basically a story of unending discovery. Em Savage, and many other young adults awaken in strange mechanical coffins with almost no memories of who they are, where they are and what they are supposed to do. That Mr Sigler made the process of discovery such an important aspect of the story, with characters learning their skills and roles as they rediscovered their memories gave the book a sense of wonder and discovery that is the basis for the best science fiction. Now with the release Alight I can reveal a bit more about the first novel to get you ready for the tales that unfold in this exceptional sequel. We now know that Em and the Birthday Children were on a starship headed to a world,Omeyocan, that was chosen by the Grownups, who built the ship, and had sinister plans for our protagonists. We still, however, have only a vague idea about what caused so much death and devastation on the ship, and know even less about the planet towards which our characters are hurtling on their stolen shuttle. Having said that I am afraid that I am not going to be able to divulge much more of the plot of Alight, because like Alive, the reader learns what they need to learn when are characters do, and not a moment sooner. The narrative strategy may be the same this time out, and the characters face a set of similar dilemmas, which are after all, the basic rules of survival, but the basis of their challenge could not be more different. Alive was a grueling exercise in claustrophobic tension, but Alight is a grueling exercise in agoraphobic tension. If you thought that there were problems in dealing with an unexplored spaceship imagine having to come to grips with an entire unexplored world, about which you know nothing. Even more disturbing, it appears that the city our characters discover seems ravaged by war and ruin, and some of the buildings are plastered with violent images of sacrificial murder, that along with the architecture, strongly suggest some of the worst aspects of Mayan and Incan culture. There are also strong signs that another intelligent race may be out in the huge, endless jungle that seems to make up most of the planet, and they don’t seem ready to share. The paradox of discovery is also a strong element in this novel. The more that they learn the better their chance for survival, but as their skills and memories emerge the differences in their class and roles threatens to drive new wedges in the alliances that have brought them so far. All of the main character from Alive are here; Spingate,O’Malley, Bishop, Aramovsky,Gaston, and of course, Em. Mr. Sigler gives them depth and realism,( particularly Spingate, and O’Malley), even while emphasizing that the roles they were destined to play in society are changing them. Em, in particular receive a surprising revelation about her role, but it never stops her from being not just the lead in Alight, but the heart and soul of the story. Without spoilers, heart and soul is integral to Alight, as it morphs from being a tale of survival, to a tale of doing what is right regardless of the circumstances. All of that is tucked inside of a well-constructed, twisting plot that absolutely explodes with action and danger. To top it off I said in my last review that Em should become the latest in a row of ass-kicking YA icons, and I believe that even more now. She is smart, tough funny, but also kind, compassionate and willing to sacrifice herself for her friends. The only two tiny flaws that made this a four-star for me are the cliff-hanger ending, and the fact that I think that Alight is a bit difficult to read as a stand-alone. Aside from that grab this book, then get ready for the last installment. I can’t wait to see what Mr. Sigler has up his sleeves next time that I can’t tell you about. |
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