Musings on a Literary Journey

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Listening Closely, by Arlene Romoff

Listening Closely: A Journey to Bilateral Hearing
by, Arlene Romoff
Imagine Publishing, 2011
978-1936140213
175 pages

Born with normal hearing, Arlene Romoff began to gradually lose it throughout her teens. Over the course of the next twenty-five years she slowly descended into total deafness. At the time, there was no hearing aid or device that could help her until the technology of cochlear implants was created and allowed her the miracle of being able to once again hear. But ten years later, that implant failed and Arlene was forced to have another procedure done with new state-of-the-art technology.

For starters, Romoff’s book Listening Closely does not chronicle her deafness and subsequent restored hearing in any detail. That is covered in her earlier book, Hear Again. Listening Closely describes in excruciating detail the failure of her first device and its replacement with a newer kind of device that is surgically implanted in both ears. I say excruciating because Romoff’s writing reads like a medical logbook or stereo instructions rather than any sort of personal journal. Her writing is devoid of any real emotional content. It is really nothing more than one technical journal entry after another that I could have read about in Wikipedia just as easily.

Romoff wants the reader to be impressed with what she went through, using the terms “miracle” and “breakthrough” so many times and explanation points so often that it wears the reader out and makes her struggle sound cliché. Frankly, there really is no story here at all. While I’m sure it was an amazing experience for her to regain her hearing and the technological innovations have been amazing, Romoff simply fails to convey any of this to the reader to make them care about her journey. There may be in interesting story to be told, but it doesn’t exist in the form of Listening Closely.

My copy of Listening Closely was provided by the publisher through the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program.

The Secret Speech, by Tom Rob Smith

The Secret Speech

by, Tom Rob Smith
Grand Central Publishing, 2009
978-0446402408
432 pages

“Standing directly over him Zoya raised the knife. Although she couldn’t see him, her imagination mapped the contours of his body. She wouldn’t stab him in the stomach: the blankets might absorb the blade. She’d plunge the blade through his neck, sinking it as far as she could, before he had a chance to overpower her. Knife outstretched, she pressed down with perfect control. Through the blade she felt his arm, his shoulder – she steered upward, making small depressions until the knife tip touched directly onto his skin. In position, all she had to do was grip the handle with both hands and push down.”

It is 1956 in the Soviet Union and Stalin is dead, leaving behind a country that is fracturing. Now citizens view the police as the criminals with tacit approval from Nikita Khrushchev’s secret speech. But not everyone is ready to follow Khrushchev’s lead of adopting reforms and forgetting the past. Some want to make sure the state remains fully in control while others still have a score to settle with the individuals who did Stalin’s bidding. Now former MGB officer, Leo Demidov has left that life behind to form a secret branch of the militia – the first ever homicide investigative unit in the Soviet state. While Leo feels he no longer the awful person he once was, the two young girls he and his wife have adopted remember how Leo was a party to the murder of their parents. And they are not the only ones who haven’t forgiven what Leo Demidov did as a MGB officer. Someone from his past is prepared to use his family’s dysfunctional state against him. In a desperate personal mission, Leo will have to face the desolate Siberian Gulags and the uprising in Hungary to not just save his family, but rescue himself from his own past.

The Secret Speech picks up shortly after Smith’s first book, Child 44 (4.0stars, Recommended) as Leo Demidov tries to put his past life behind him and build a loving family out of his shattered history. As in Child 44, Smith does a commendable job portraying the bleak and often paranoid existence of living in the 1950’s Soviet Union where the next word you say could be the one that sends you to the Gulags. He also captures the tumultuous times in the Soviet Union following Stalin’s death where the tug-o-war between revolution and state control played out – often with deadly consequences.

Also like Child 44, The Secret Speech takes on a somewhat plodding pace in the early part of the book which seems to emulate what it was like to exist in the Soviet Union. But unlike Child 44, The Secret Speech doesn’t provide as much tension and mystery in the story. Demidov becomes more of a James Bond character dodging death left and right rather than being the intellectual detective he really is. While the action was a product of his circumstances and was entertaining, it seemed out of character and somewhat overdone throughout the story causing the tension and my interest to wane at times. This is a case of less-would-have-been-more.

In spite of that criticism, The Secret Speech’s real strength is not as an action thriller but as the drama of a man’s search for redemption from his past and how guilt can drive a person to do anything to prove to everyone and themselves that they can and have changed. Smith captures the emotions of a fractured family with two parents who desperately want the affections of their adopted daughters while receiving nothing but scorn in return. Ultimately there is a great deal of human emotion and development that is what really makes the story come to life and succeed as something other than the average historical thriller. On the strength of that, The Secret Speech is a worthy second installment to the story of Leo Demidov and the old Soviet Union. In spite of its shortcomings, this book is worth picking up.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

The Blue Star, by Tony Earley

The Blue Star
by, Tony Earley
Little, Brown & Co., 2008
978-0316199070
286 pages

Jim Glass’ senior year was supposed to be simple. But his life in a small North Carolina town in 1941 has become anything but simple. He is supposed to be with Norma, but he doesn’t love her – or right now even like her. He wants to be with Chrissie, but she is dating a guy Jim hates who has left for the Navy. On top of that, Chrissie won’t even look in his direction. For Jim, time may be short because the winds of war are blowing and he will need his family to guide him through life and politics in a small town that he doesn’t understand.

“The weather matched Jim’s mood perfectly. He found it a good day to labor under the almost public burden of a not-quite-secret unrequited love. His friends, both the guys on the steps and the girls who pretended to be offended by their existence, had begun to tease him about Christine Steppe – which genuinely puzzled Jim because he had spoken of his feelings about Chrissie to no one, and certainly not to Dennis Deane, who these days, when the bus from Lynn’s Mountain pulled up in front of the school, launched into a ridiculous, mincing recitation of “Jim and Chrissie sitting in a tree” that even Jim had to admit was funny.”

The Blue Star follows Jim Glass – who is introduced in Jim the Boy (2000) – through his senior year of high school. Earley does a masterful job of immersing us in the rural American of the early 1940’s. Images of the town and townsfolk of Aliceville are crisp and clear, bringing to life that bygone era of American when it was about to lose its innocence for good.

The characters of The Blue Star feel authentic and the writing really allows us to feel who they are. However, none of the characters, including Jim, ever really surprise us. They are all pretty normal people leading pretty normal lives – and maybe that is Earley’s whole point. There is a soft, simplicity to his writing style that makes the story warm and comfortable to curl up next to the fireplace with.

The story itself follows a classic love triangle of boy pursuing the girl across the tracks rather than the obvious choice who is hung up on him. But the relationships lack much emotional angst beyond the three participants themselves. The rest of the town seems oblivious to what is happening, leading to little tension or depth to the story. The ending is also a bit trite, if not unexpected. Even so, The Blue Star is an enjoyable, comfortable read that serves as a bit of an antidote to high stakes novels with cliff hanger endings. It is slower-paced literature that doesn’t try to be anything more than what it is – a story of a boy falling in love. If that is something you are looking for, The Blue Star will serve you quite well.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Blood Brother, by Malcolm Rose

Blood Brother
by Malcolm Rose
Kingfisher Press, 2007
978-0753461709
160 pages

In the near future city of York, 16-year-old forensic investigator Luke Harding is tasked with investigating why the local hospital has more and more patients dying than ever before. But when Luke and his robotic partner MALC discover DNA evidence linking Luke’s father to the crimes, Luke must confront his family’s past while finding out who the killer is before anyone else dies.

Blood Brother is the sixth installment of Malcolm Rose’s Traces mystery series featuring young Luke Harding. While I have not read the preceding stories, I found it easy to slip into the world that Rose has crafted. The series is geared for young adults and as a result the writing is simple and straight forward. This is probably a strength because this allows the story to move along quickly never allowing the tension to slacken. Rose does a very good job of making his primary characters interesting. There isn’t a lot of character development beyond Luke however. His trials and tribulations have depth, but his relationships aren’t a priority. The real story is in the chase and it is laid out quite well.

Blood Brother is definitely ideal for young readers who want some action and technology in there reading. And while the mystery isn’t very complex, it holds together well and should give adult readers some quick entertainment as well. An enjoyable story.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

The Beginners, by Rebecca Wolff

The Beginners
by, Rebecca Wolff
Riverhead Hardcover, 2011
978-1594487996
304 pages

“I was standing there in my usual spot behind to counter at the Top Hat Café, looking down, thinking about evil, buttering toast.”

The Beginners takes us into the life of fifteen-year-old Ginger Pritt and her life growing up in a too-small town. While her best friend Cherry has taken to chasing boys, Ginger feels enslaved by her own innocence until the arrival of a sophisticated couple from the city who take a keen interest in her. But who are they and why are they so interested in her while so uninterested in the rest of the town?

The Beginners is supposed to be a dark, tragic, coming-of-age story for young Ginger. And for the first twenty pages or so it offers a promising start. The trouble is that the entire story goes absolutely nowhere. Worse than being unlikable, Ginger is unknowable. She acts as nothing other than an observer to events that crawl along with no tension and no forward momentum. It is as though Wolff decided to recreate a journal of her own adolescence – a set of thoughts and feelings that are far more gripping to the author than to anyone else. And no matter how many flowery descriptions of what the room looked like and how much time Wollf spent glued to her thesaurus, The Beginners is never able to get beyond reading like an encyclopedia entry. While it may be true that a novel with a narrator who is an observer can work quite well (ie, Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby) it requires that the characters she is observing be interesting and there be a change in either her or the people she is observing as a result of some kind of action. None of this happens in The Beginners. In addition, Wolff’s writing isn’t so much lyrical as it is overwritten. It doesn’t just feel like trudging through some girl’s diary – if feels like trudging through some uninteresting girl’s diary who writes too much.

Frankly, The Beginners was both boring and painful to read. There was no coming-of-age. There was no suspense. There was not a single interesting character in the whole story. Somehow, Wolff even managed to make a rape feel boring. No small feat. While there may be “a million stories in the naked city,” that doesn’t mean that they are all interesting. This is one book not to waste your time on.

I received my advanced copy of The Beginners from the Goodreads Early Reviewer program.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Monday Quote: Albert Einstein

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

-Albert Einstein

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Mystic River, by Dennis Lehane

Mystic River
by, Dennis Lehane
HarperCollins Publishers, 2001
978-0061827426
416 pages

RECOMMENDED!

“It had occurred to Sean once - on a bender about ten years before with some buddies, Sean and a bloodstream full of bourbon turning philosophical - that maybe they HAD gotten in that car. All three of them. And what they now thought of as their life was just a dream state. That all three of them were, in reality, still eleven-year-old boys trapped in some cellar, imagining what they'd become if they ever escaped and grew up.”

When three young boys in 1970s Boston encounter a pair of child molesters disguised as police officers, Jimmy Marcus and Sean Devine manage to get away. Their friend Dave Boyle isn’t so lucky and endures four days that change his life. Twenty-five years later the three boys will converge once again as men. When straightened-out ex-con Jimmy’s daughter is murdered, he and his violent friends vow to take revenge. Sean is a State Police detective who must try to solve the case while keeping Jimmy from doing anything rash while Sean’s own life is in tatters. Dave’s life is adrift in spite of a wife and child. He tries to suppress is ugly urges born of his childhood ordeal. But when Dave becomes a suspect in Katie Marcus’ murder, all of their lives crash together.

Mystic River is a story of many things. It is, of course, a murder mystery, and the violent murder drives the plot forward. However, the murder is only what throws the main characters’ lives back together. The story is really about the relationships of these three men and how class and circumstance can shape a person’s destiny as much as will. The tension between Jimmy and Sean – percolating since childhood – promises to undermine the search for Katie’s killer. The story spotlights how small choices can create huge consequences that nobody recognizes until long after the choice is made. Lehane also does a masterful job of painting the social situation of working-class Boston and the mindset of people growing up and growing old there.

Lehane’s writing draws out every nuance, every last emotion of each character. There is no dead space in the story. Every word builds on the others to create an authentic world that the reader can see, feel, taste and touch. Not only does he bring his characters’ relationships to life, he also creates a fantastic story within their very real world. Lehane doesn’t once tip his hand until it is the right time to do so. Even then, there is always another layer to the story. The mystery of the murder is so visceral…so real…that it is frightening in its authentic resolution. The irony of the final chapter is writing perfection.

There is a deep literary beauty, even within the darkness of Mystic River. If there is a standard by which modern character-driven stories should be measured, this is certainly one of the pinnacle works of the genre and should be on the reading list of anyone who treasures a realistic, crime-driven story. From the beginning paragraph until the last sentence, Mystic River never waivers once as a superb story.

Golf Fitness, by Karen Palacios-Jansen

Golf Fitness
by, Karen Palacios-Jansen
Taylor Trade Publishing, 2011
978-1589796119
232 pages

RECOMMENDED!

For a long time, many believed that the game of golf had nothing to do with sports and athleticism. The emergence of Tiger Woods turned that thinking upside down as he showed what a focus on proper fitness and nutrition could give him a massive advantage over the rest of the golf world. Today, all of the pros on the PGA Tour recognize this as an indisputable fact, but it is also becoming apparent that all golfers can benefit from proper physical fitness and nutrition. Golf Fitness brings all of the current knowledge and research together in one concise package that golfers of any ability can understand.

As a point of full disclosure, I took up the game of golf at the age of 5 and went on to earn a golf scholarship to college where I was the team captain for 3 years. So I know a thing or two about the game of golf. As a result, I come into any publication with a certain level of skepticism. However, Palacios-Jansen and the team at Golf Fitness Magazine have hit a preverbal hole-in-one with Golf Fitness.

The book is divided into sections. The first chapters help you evaluate what your swing problems are and what weaknesses may be causing them. It then moves into different types of exercises that can correct the weaknesses and help to provide the functional strength and flexibility to swing the club properly. In addition, there are several workout programs from top professionals, nutritional guidelines and steps to help improve your mental outlook on the golf course as well.

Golf Fitness represents a consolidated approach to improving your golf game, not though gimmicks, but with professionally tested methods based on current scientific research and field tested on the biggest golf tournaments in the world. My only regret about Golf Fitness is that it didn’t exist 25 years ago when it could have helped me most. Even so, it has the information to help all golfers improve their game no matter their age or ability. A must have for any golf enthusiast.

My advance copy of Golf Fitness was provided by the LibraryThing Early Reviewer Program.

Friday, September 23, 2011

The Passage, by Justin Cronin

The Passage

by, Justin Cronin
Ballantine Books (2010)
978-0345504968
766 pages

RECOMMENDED!

When the US Army finds a terrible secret buried in jungles of South America, they decide that it could be the perfect weapon against their enemies. But when the weapon turns out to be uncontrollable and is unleashed on the entire world, all but a few survivors become targets for an army of undead led by the results of scientific experimentation – the Twelve. Only a maverick FBI agent and a six-year old orphan may have the answer to what has lain siege to the world…if they can survive long enough to find the answers.

“In her mind's eye she saw it, saw it all at last: the rolling armies and the flames of battle; the graves and pits and dying cries of a hundred million souls; the spreading darkness, like a black wing stretching over the earth; the last, bitter hours of cruelty and sorrow, and the terrible, final flights; death's great dominion over all, and, at the last, empty cities, becalmed by the silence of a hundred years. Already these things were coming to pass.”

Given the plenitude of vampire books these days, I have to say I was pretty hesitant to pick up The Passage at first. I had been the victim of the hype machine before (The Historian, 2.0 stars) and I wasn’t in a big hurry to get bogged down in another 800+ page snooze-fest again. Fortunately, Justin Cronin came to the rescue with a unique spin on the apocalyptic tale.

Cronin ventures headlong into an end of the world scenario when the government unknowing unleashes an undead army on America. But rather than turn The Passage into a war-of-the-worlds epic, Cronin focuses on the few humans to escape the carnage, sprinkling news of what was happening in the rest of the country in small secondhand doses. While so many vampire novels are all about the vampires, The Passage is all about the humans. Cronin doesn’t overwhelm the story with a massive cast. He populates the story with just the right number of engaging characters that are neither cliché nor boring. None of the characters get a glossing over. Each one jumps off the page and feels real and alive…even as they face death.

The writing itself is superb. The plot is both expansive and intimately human. It is a really refreshing take on the vampire mythology in a modern context. With the exception of a bit of a lull in the middle part of the book, the story moved along well and kept the pages turning one after the other. Every time it seemed I knew how things were going to go, the landscape changed and I was even more engaged in the story. It was “unputdownable” for the last two hundred pages. Finally, the ending left me yearning for more – which is a good thing considering this is the first volume of an anticipated trilogy. I have to say that I completely enjoyed this book and can’t wait for the next installment to come out. Highly recommended!

Copyright © 2011 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Anatomy of a Disappearance, by Hisham Matar

Anatomy of a Disappearance

by, Hisham Matar
Random House, 2011
978-0385340441
256 pages

When a young arab boy, Nuri, loses his mother to illness, he and his dissident father must emotionally support each other in their apartment in Cairo. However, bikini-clad Mona arrives in their lives, and Nuri must watch as his advances go unnoticed and she falls in love with his father. But when Nuri’s father disappears under mysterious circumstances, Nuri must come to grips with his relationships with his father and Mona while trying to find his own place in the world.

Hisham Matar does a good job of painting the world of Nuri el-Alfi, an adolescent Arab boy living in Cairo whose mother has died and father is an exiled confidant of a murdered King. Matar frames the circumstances of Nuri’s existence and lends emotional depth to him and his longings. Matar’s writing is very readable, in fact quite comfortable. Unfortunately, the story languishes after the initial setup. Anatomy of a Disappearance could have turned into either a thriller or a coming-of-age story, but it doesn’t do either one. Matar stops short of allowing the reader to really understand Nuri and he doesn’t provide depth to any of the other characters. Nuri is an observer who isn’t very observant surrounded by people who don’t say much of anything. So many questions are left unanswered that they story loses any emotional weight.

While Nuri says that he misses his father and wishes he would come back, he really doesn’t do anything to try and uncover any truths. The few nuggets of information Nuri does find out just fall in his lap. While Matar’s writing is lyrical and his scenes are beautifully constructed, by the time we reach the ending, the most important plot question remains untouched and the story concludes with a "twist" that really doesn't have much punch for either Nuri or the reader. Anatomy of a Disappearance begins as a promising seed, but Matar fails to harvest a ripe story leaving the reader to watch it wither on the vine neglected.

The Ranger, by Ace Atkins

The Ranger

by, Ace Atkins
Putnam, 2011
978-0399157486
352 pages

When Army Ranger Quinn Colson journeys home to the small town of Jericho, Mississippi for the funeral of his uncle, the sheriff, he finds far more questions than answers waiting. His uncle’s death is listed as a suicide, but some think it is murder. Corruption has seized the town as the greed of commercial development has allowed drug runners and swindlers to take over. Quinn becomes embroiled in a conflict to save his uncle’s property and finds out he can trust almost nobody. It is time for the Ranger to take a stand.

The proof copy of The Ranger makes it clear that this is the beginning of a series built around the character of Quinn Colson. Atkins does a nice job of creating an environment and populating it with interesting characters. He paints a stark portrait of rural Mississippi that feels authentic. Atkins also creates some very engaging characters, but he seems so focused on Quinn that the other characters get left underdeveloped. The storytelling moves along at a good, clean pace, never slowing the story. However, the dialog seems to lurch along at times in an attempt to give it an ‘authentic voice.’ But these are small criticisms.

The herculean problem with The Ranger lies with its main character. Quinn Colson is set up as the tough as nails solder with a heart of gold. Right from the start he goes out of his way to help a lost, broke, pregnant woman on the side of the road as reinforcement to this image. However, he contradicts himself throughout the rest of the story. There is little attempt to explain why Quinn would do the things that he does. Quinn motivation for undertaking his unorthodox mission only makes sense as the retelling of every spaghetti western told since the days of black and white television - he is the good guy and he is fighting the bad guys. That’s enough, right?

Quinn refuses an offer to buy his uncle’s land because it has been in his family’s name for generations, even though he has no intention of moving back to the town and he doesn’t seem to like anyone in his family. His friends, family and even perfect strangers are never once in any kind of jeopardy until Quinn makes a point to put them there. Why? Because we can’t have a hero if there isn’t any conflict…even if he is the one creating it. But it gets worse. One moment Quinn is deep in thought about how as a platoon sergeant he had to show restraint and be a father figure to his men. To be a professional. The next moment he is gleefully wounding the bad guys with a compound bow. Yes, I said wounding! Yes, I said gleefully! I have family members who are both Army Rangers and law enforcement and I can tell you that is not something they are trained to do…or would ever do. And they certainly wouldn’t do it like this:

“Two Cracking shots. A man yelled.

Quinn smiled. Boom was having a time, having found the right spot for the deer rifle, loaded, balanced and sighted right down the path…

Quinn took a breath and steadied himself, letting the string go and zipping an arrow right into Gowrie’s shoulder blade, knocking him forward and then backwards to his knees, the AK chattering away up into the laced branches overhead.

Quinn smiled again and reached for another arrow.”

As if to emphasize the point, few moments later we get Quinn shooting a man in the groin. This might be the way somebody might dream of taking revenge on someone and attempting to scare them off, but it isn’t the way a trained solder operates, much less a veteran Army Ranger. Atkins also manages to paint everyone in law enforcement as inept or corrupt. We even get the quintessential Tombstone-esc scene with the big showdown in the middle of town where real law enforcement has run for cover and only Quinn and his buddies can come and save the day. The whole story becomes cliché and simply topples like a house of cards, complete with an unsatisfying ending.

The Ranger is built off of the grand storytelling history of the lone good guy vs. the corrupt town full of bad guys. It is a template that has provided many great stories. While the writing itself is good, the hero and his motivation are so unbelievable that the story simply falls apart.

The Strip, by J.J. Salem

The Strip
by, J.J. Salem
St. Martin's Griffin, 2011
978-0312374181
304 pages

Sin City has always had its own rules and morality. So when three wealthy, highly successful women find that the answer to their unfulfilling marriages is to engage the services of a sophisticated male prostitute, there is nothing shocking about it. But when he ends up murdered, the question becomes who did it and who might be next.

The Strip centers on the lives of Kristen (a best-selling author), Billie (Vegas’ quintessential song-and-dance maven) and Jennifer (the marriage counselor) along with their hired hunk Cam Lawford. All four of these characters are compelling and create quite a dynamic between them. Even though Cam is far too perfect to be real, he serves his function in the story in a James Bond manner. However, the rest of the characters are so cliché they could be made of cardboard. Kristen and Billie’s husbands are so simplistically evil as to be caricatures of villains – very nearly comic rather than threatening. Only Jennifer’s transgressions against her misunderstood husband come across as authentic and understandable.

The most troublesome part of The Strip is the plot. It spits and sputters along without ever building towards a conclusion. The murder is foretold in the first chapter along with introducing an interesting detective who is then completely forgotten for the rest of the book. Conflicts are stilted and only seem to fill the gaps between flamboyant sex scenes where Cam always says and does the right thing and never steps over any lines. Finally, the conclusion is haphazard. With so little tension built throughout the story, there is nothing to be released at the end. While The Strip may serve as a fantasy session for women who want to imagine being swept up by that perfect guy (even if you have to pay for it) there is very little story to engage the reader.

The Strip was provided by St. Martin’s Press through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

Dominance, by Will Lavender

Dominance
by, Will Lavender
Simon & Schuster, 2011
978-1451617290
368 pages

Fifteen years ago, convicted murderer Richard Aldiss is inexplicably allowed to teach a class at Jasper College via video feed. The class – Unraveling a Literary Mystery – provides Aldiss the opportunity to engage his students in the search for the real identity of Paul Fallows, a reclusive author of two published novels – The Coil and The Golden Silence. In order to unlock the key though, Fallows scholars much play The Procedure, a game where everyone slips into the characters of the stories, but you never know when it might begin. Student Alex Shipley not only unearths the true identity of Fallows, but exonerated Aldiss in the process. Fifteen years later, alums of the class are being murdered and surrounded by Fallows novels. The police think Shipley can help them catch the killer, but can she figure it out before more of her former classmates are killed?

While the premise of Dominance is interesting, even early in the story the sheer weight of contrived circumstances necessary for the story to happen really fails the believability test. In trying to weave a tale of literary clues and real crime together, Lavender has built a cardboard façade with nothing standing behind it. The characters act more like props than people, taking actions with no motivation or even common sense behind them. Even more egregious, the primary supposition that literary scholars would participate in such a fraternity style game in the name of learning some hidden scholarly secret flies in the face of the real academic world. There simply is no reason why anyone would do the things that these people do. After that, everything else seems cartoonish and the characters just go through the motions. As a result, there is no tension to what is supposed to be a tension filled murder mystery.

In addition, the primary character of Alex Shipley is so annoying and unlikeable that I spent the second half of the book hoping that she would be the next victim and we could just move on. Finally, in an attempt to hit the reader with the big “gotcha” at the end, the actual killer is completely contrived and the entire story ends with a lot of head scratching and a big snore.

While Lavender’s writing is quite good, in Dominance he severely overreaches on the plot and fails to build a convincing story. If you are looking for a good murder mystery, you need to look elsewhere.

The early review copy of Dominance was provided by the publisher through the Goodreads Giveaway program.

Copyright © 2011 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Monday Quote: Oliver Wendell Holmes

"You know well enough what I mean by youth and age;--something in the soul, which has no more to do with the color of the hair than the vein of gold in a rock has to do with the grass a thousand feet above it." ~ The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Copyright © 2011 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Wednesday Word: amaranthine

amaranthine

1. Unfading; everlasting.

2. Of or like the amaranth flower.

3. Of purplish-red color.

Origin:

Amaranthine is a form of the Greek amarantos, "everlasting," ascribed to an imaginary flower that never fades.

Source: courtesy of dictionary.com

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Final Approach, by Rachel Brady

Final Approach

by, Rachel Brady
Poison Pen Press, 2009
978-1615950140
250 pages

RECOMMENDED!

When Emily Locke is called by Richard Cole, the detective turned PI who investigated the death of her husband and daughter four years earlier, she is in no hurry to help him. When she finds out she gets to fly to Houston and engage in her passion for sky-diving while helping to check a lead in a child abduction case, Emily decides that this is a good excuse for a vacation. What Emily quickly discovers is that the lead is very real , but she is unsure of who she can actually trust. The stakes increase as Emily finds out that along with a missing child there is also the possibility of learning the truth about her own family’s tragic end. But the search for the truth could cost her life…and potentially even more.

Rachel Brady’s debut mystery novel Final Approach brings us into the life of chemist Emily Locke, who is unwittingly dropped into the pursuit of a baby abduction ring that might have ties to her past. Written from the first-person perspective of Emily, the story delves into the world of skydiving where we learn all about “boogies” and “cutaway chutes.” Fortunately, it isn’t just a skydiving education that Final Approach provides. It is also a very well written mystery. Brady provides Emily an authentic voice that is both human and endearing. Emily doesn’t have all of the answers – in fact she doesn’t even know a lot of the questions – but she learns and makes mistakes in a way that readers can relate to. She is no superhero, but that doesn’t prevent her from making a heroic stand. Brady does a fantastic job introducing the other characters and keeping the reader guessing as to whether they are someone Emily can confide in or someone she needs to run away from.

Brady doesn’t spend very much time painting picturesque scenes. Final Approach is very much a character and plot driven chase. At 250 pages, the story moves quickly and leads into a succession of twists and turns that work so well. Brady keeps you hanging on for the ride right up to the last page. A very satisfying story from a promising, gifted writer. I can’t wait to read her next story. Mystery fans should check this one out.

Friday, June 3, 2011

The Reversal, by Michael Connelly

The Reversal

by, Michael Connelly
Little, Brown and Co., 2010
978-0316069489
389 pages

RECOMMENDED!

What could possibly cause lifelong defense attorney Mickey Haller to jump the isle and become a special prosecutor on a 24-year-old case? It would take nothing short of the impending release of a child murderer, Jason Jessup. With the DA’s office in shame and the public believing that DNA evidence has exonerated an innocent man, Haller makes it clear that he will do it – but only do it on his terms. Those terms include him ignoring the posturing of the political-minded district attorney as well as enlisting the only two people he can trust – his half-brother LAPD Detective Harry Bosch and Mickey’s ex-wife, Assistant District Attorney Maggie McPherson. But the road won’t be easy. Between a crafty defendant, a slick, media savvy defense attorney, a no-nonsense judge and a star witness who can’t be found, Haller’s team is going to have to pull off a miracle to keep a man who they are sure will kill again from gaining his freedom.

This is Michael Connelly’s fourth installment with Mickey Haller (The Lincoln Lawyer, The Brass Verdict, Nine Dragons) and 16^th featuring Harry Bosch. Even though I had not read any of Michael Connelly’s previous novels, I was immediately sucked right into the story. Connelly hits on just enough of each character’s history to keep the reader informed, but he never slows the story down. The characters truly come alive as this unlikely team tries to piece together a 24-year-old mystery and Connelly’s skillful scene setting and characterization makes for an entertaining ride. He is even able to make the stodgy innards of an arraignment courtroom interesting:

“Presiding over this anthill was Judge Malcolm Firestone, who sat with his head down and his sharp shoulders jutting up and closer to his ears with each passing year. His black robe gave them the appearance of folded wings and the overall image was one of Firestone as a vulture waiting impatiently to dine on the bloody detritus of the justice system.”

Connelly brings equal precision to the police procedures taking place under the watchful eye of Harry Bosch. Tensions flare between the half-brothers as Bosch’s pursuit of Jessup’s new life becomes personal and threatens to upset Haller’s chances of a conviction while Bosch suspects that the DA’s office is only interested in heading off a multi-million dollar civil suite at the expense of justice. I was rewarded throughout the book with subtle changes of direction rather than complete reversals, right up to the unexpected conclusion. And while the story is an exhilarating journey, it is never outlandish or contrived. Sometimes the biggest surprises were when the expected switch didn’t happen. It is a lesson to aspiring crime writers everywhere. But the biggest reward was the characters that were brought to life so skillfully that the story had the feel of something lifted right out of today’s headlines.

There is no doubt after reading The Reversal that Michael is a master storyteller and a premier crime fiction writer at the top of his game. It has motivated me to go back and read all of his earlier works to see just how much I have been missing. I highly recommend this book to all crime and legal aficionados. One of the best I have read in a long time.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Death at La Fenice, by Donna Leon

Death at La Fenice

by, Donna Leon
HarperCollins, 1992
978-0060740689
270 pages

“Beautiful and serene Venice is a city almost devoid of crime. But that is little comfort to Maestro Helmut Wellauer, a world-renowned conductor whose intermission refreshment comes one night with a little something extra in it-cyanide. For Guido Brunetti, vice-commissario of police and detective genius, finding a suspect isn't a problem; narrowing the large and unconventional group of enemies down to one is. As the suave and pithy Brunetti pieces together clues, a shocking picture of depravity and revenge emerges, leaving him torn between what is and what should be right — and questioning what the law can do, and what needs to be done.”

Donna Leon’s detective series featuring Guido Brunetti now spans twenty volumes with a devoted readership and millions in print. Written in 1992, Death at La Fenice is the first in the series, taking place in the showpiece city of Venice, Italy. When a famous conductor dies in the middle of a performance, Brunetti is called in to investigate the murder. Under pressure to solve the very high-profile crime, Brunetti quickly discovers that Maestro Helmut is surrounded by potential suspects with both opportunity and motive to do him in. Helmut also has a secret past from his time in Nazi Germany – and some people haven’t forgotten.

In spite of being written almost twenty years ago, Death at La Fenice does not feel dated. Leon’s is able to set the mood of every scene, evoking powerful images while her characters fill the pages with crisp dialog. While not in any way flashy, Guido Brunetti serves as a convincing hero. The story flows well but there were times when it did become a bit sluggish. Death at La Fenice is a mystery –an intellectual pursuit – devoid of perilous action or imminent danger, much in the vein of Agatha Christie. Even so, the pacing became a bit too plodding. Leon may not employ the amount of action or sex commonly seen in current detective novel, but perhaps that is her whole point. There is a subtlety to Brunetti that is the antithesis of the gritty, flawed detectives of so many other mainsteam detective series. Brunetti represents a strength of character that I did find both fascinating and compelling. Most importantly, I never reached the point of being bored, right up to the unexpected ending.

Death at La Fenice does have me ordering the next book in the series to see where Guido Brunetti takes us next. That is the mark of a compelling series – one book propels you into the next. A worthy read for detective fans.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
by, Stieg Larsson

Knopf Doubleday, 2008

978-0307272119

426 pages

RECOMMENDED!

Financial writer and publisher Mikael Blomkvist has seen better days. His reputation is in tatters and he is headed to jail. All Mikael wants to do is disappear for a while. But when the aging industrialist Henrik Vanger wants to hire Mikael to research a crime from a half century before, he dangles the one incentive that Mikael can’t say no too – redemption. To further complicate matters, his eccentric new partner Lisbeth Salander may or may not be on his side. Mikael soon finds out that the price of redemption might be more than he is willing to pay, and could even cost him his life.

This opening salvo in Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy – translated from the original Swedish – draws the reader in from the very beginning. Larsson does what every good thriller writer must by creating a scenario that is both fantastic and believable at the same time. But he goes beyond most writers by bringing to life intricately detailed characters without ever allowing the story to bog down in minutia. This is a rare ability immerses the reader into this world to the point where it becomes its own reality. There are many subplots throughout the story, and yet Larsson never strays even once from his primary goal – to tell a great story. In fact, the crescendo of the story came with more than 100 pages to go…or so I thought. Little did I know there was so much more to tell and I was riveted all the way until the end. The action is never cliché and there are enough twists to keep you ferociously reading without it ever becoming unbelievable. Larsson walks that tightrope as well as any action writer can and produces a wonderful story.

This is without a doubt one of the best books I've read in quite a while. I am very much looking forward to reading the next installment. No matter what your favorite genre might be, I highly recommend picking this book up.

Copyright © 2011 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Zero Day, by Mark Russinovich

Zero Day
by, Mark Russinovich
St. Martin’s Press, 2011

978-0312612467

320 pages

“An insidious cyber-terrorist attack threatens to destroy the Western World in this debut by a leading expert on cybersecurity

Over the Atlantic, an airliner’s controls suddenly stop reacting. In Japan, an oil tanker runs aground when its navigational system fails. And in the Midwest, a nuclear power plant nearly becomes the next Chernobyl.

At first, these computer failures seem unrelated. But Jeff Aiken, a former government analyst who saw the mistakes made before 9/11, fears that there may be a more serious attack coming. And he soon realizes that there isn’t much time if he hopes to stop an international disaster.”

Drawing on a distinguished career in the computer world that included being one of the top dogs at Microsoft, Mark Russinovich has turned his experience with cybersecurity into a save-the-world thriller. The novel’s premise of terrorists using computers and the Internet to stage the next great offensive against the western world is both plausible and frightening. And while Russinovich has a more thorough grasp of the methods by which such an attack is possible, he fails to deliver a convincing story. The first two-thirds of the book reads more like a technical position paper rather than a thriller. Russinovich spends virtually all of his time engaged in dialog between geeks discussing about how all these bad things can actually happen. After a hundred pages of it, I just stopped paying attention to all of the minutia. It reads like the kinds of conversations I’m sure the computer geeks sit around and have every day after work. Russinovich even provides us conversations in “geekeese” to try and decipher.

“JA33: Thr ws 1 gy tlling anthr abt sllng packgs and triggrs. Gttng good $ fr t.
D007: Any nme we knw?
JA33: Superphreak. He’s hndlng t rtkits, slick bstrd.
D007: Gv me t site. I’ll put smn on it fulltm.”

I’m not sure what is more frightening – that people actually communicate like this or that Russinovich felt readers needed to be subjected to it. And when the action final began so very late in the novel, he used every over-the-top thriller cliché without any sense of realism or even common sense. I couldn’t help but laugh at how silly it all became. Even the supposed “twist” at the end fell flat. By then, I just couldn’t have cared less.

Ultimately, Zero Day takes a very real and very frightening modern day threat and turns it into something as boring as reading stereo instructions. The geeks might run the world and the Internet might be the death of us all, but after reading Zero Day, it appears nobody will give a damn when the end comes.

Copyright © 2010 by Chad Aaron Sayban. All rights reserved.