What makes Dead Wake so compelling is that Mr. Larson gives us the story of the hunters as well as the hunted. The story of Unterseeboot-20, the U-Boat that stalked the Lusitania, it’s Captain, Walther Schwieger, and his crew is fascinating. It would have been easy to paint them as merely black-hatted villains, but Mr. Larson doesn't take that route. He gives the whole story, with all its richness and complexity. He gives us compelling looks at Germany’s military, and its decision to change the rule of war, as well as Great Britain’s secret intelligence agencies, and the part that they played in the disaster.
What makes Dead Wake stand out, however, is the characters. Mr. Larson gives us the lives behind the story, of people great and small, famous and obscure, on all sides. President Woodrow Wilson plays an important role in this book, but I found the stories of the passengers and crew of both of these ships, destined to create history through a collusion of random events both small and large, far more interesting than his personal trials. All in all, Dead Wake is a fascinating, emotional tale, told with care and an attention to detail that brings fresh life to a story that I thought that I knew, but realized I had ended up flipped onto my backside by surprise.
Post and Reviews by: Stacy Palm
I've been a fan of the television series Bones (FOX Network) for many, many years, and it seems like at least every one of those years my husband has said to me, "You know this series started from books written by a woman who really does this sort of work? You would probably really like them." Yet each year went by and for one reason or another I never got around to picking up one of Kathy Reichs' books; until now, and I have to say that I am ashamed that I've waited so long to delve into this written world that I so dearly love watching on the screen. This past weekend not only did I read her new book Bones Never Lie, but I also had available to me the short novella titled Swamp Bones and I quite frankly could not put either of these books down.
If you watch the show, please do yourself the favor of reading these books. I think I had this delusion that since I was watching the shows there was not going to be anything new or fresh within their pages, but I was so very wrong.
There is a lot more than this going on, as each team races to secure Eterna for their own county, and the novel moves back and forth covering each group's trials and tribulations. I give Ms. Hieber credit for ambition, and as I said earlier, the pace of the novel is quick, and the primary characters, particularly Spire, Everheart and Clara, are well-drawn. I feel that Ms. Hieber may have bitten-off more than she can chew, however. It certainly is possible to write a novel with a lot of characters and a lot of plot-lines and make it work, but it’s tricky, and The Eterna Files, while good, didn’t quite hit the mark. The other main problem I had with this book is that it doesn't really end as much as it just stops. I can fully understand and appreciate that if a novel is going to have a sequel, then the whole story may not be told in just one book, but I believe that a single novel has to stand alone to be considered a total success. The Eterna Files was good enough for me to enjoy it, and Ms. Hieber showed me enough that I look forward to the next book, assuming there is one, but I can’t give this one a rave review.
The plot, like all of Mr. Child’s, is full of twists and turns that genuinely surprise, but are in no way packed with tricks or gimmicks. Like all of Mr. Child’s books, this books teems with research, and details; they say the Devil is in the details, but Mr. Child gives them to us in such a way that I could savor them even as I hurtled on through the pages, wanting to see how this story would end. That is probably the final test on which all thrillers are based, and The Forgotten Room does not disappoint. It is full of chills that are genuinely scary and made more so by their plausibility.
Tons of the plot I have to keep to myself, so that you can savor the surprises the way that I did,but it all works. The mixture of science and the supernatural, making the two shift and morph is one of the techniques that Mr. Child’s utilizes wonderfully in this book, and I kept wanting to stop and research for myself if the things in this book were based on real events, but I could not, because I wanted to get to the end. At the same time I didn’t want it end. When it does end, trust me, it ends with a big, big bang, in more ways than one. So bring on the next Jeremy Logan novel.
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July 2020
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