River of Darkness by James Grady

Could have been better with a bit more set up

Published in 1991.

Also published under the title The Nature of the Game.

Imagine that James Bond were no longer needed for Her Majesty's Secret Service so they decided to eliminate him so that he couldn't embarrass them later. This is sort of the premise of River of Darkness, except that Jud Stuart is not nearly as suave and debonair as Bond and he works for the American government.

Stuart is a special forces soldier recruited by the CIA during the Vietnam war. He is involved in action in Laos, Iran, the USSR, Washington D.C. and Central America. Finally, he's had enough and decides to use his connections to smuggle drugs into the U.S. and pocket the cash for himself (and eventually becomes a marked man due to nebulous connections to the Iran-Contra scandal).

The first 100 pages or so of this novel are confusing due to a large amount of flashbacks with little or no setup. Once all of the characters are established this is much more tolerable. The flashbacks themselves are very interesting since they involve Stuart's secret missions. The rest of the book, however, is not nearly so interesting.

I rate this book 3 out of 5 stars and it can be found on Amazon.com here: River of Darkness.

Reviewed in 2004.

Final Cut by Eric Wright

A decent read, but not spectacular

Published in 1991.

A movie is being made in Toronto about a Nazi war criminal who has been hiding for decades, but is discovered and pursued. Suddenly, the movie set is sabotaged and vandalized with swastikas. Then, the writer is killed. Who's doing it? There are plenty of suspects and Inspector Charlie Salter sifts through the evidence in his slow but steady manner in order to find the culprit.

That, in a nutshell, is the book. It's a decent read, but not spectacular by any means. I liked the ending because it was not all wrapped up in a neat little package, like it was the end of a Scooby-Doo mystery. I get tired of that.

The main characters are interesting. The book reinforces my impression of movie-making - it is a tedious business, filled with lots of waiting and big egos.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Final Cut by Eric Wright.

Reviewed in 2004.

The Intruder by Peter Blauner

Lots of Plot Twists

Originally published in 1996.

The title to this book is interesting and serves as a decent introduction to the story. Ostensibly, the Intruder in the story is the homeless man who fixates on Jake Schiff and determines, through his crack-induced haze, that Jake Schiff has somehow stolen his family and his home. 

But, as you read you notice that there are actually lots of intruders. Jake Schiff is a Jewish lawyer from a rough Brooklyn neighborhood who doesn't quite fit in with his WASP law firm and their snooty ways. His wife is a social worker who is an intruder in her work world because she cares more about the clients than the bureaucracy. There's a mobster named Phillip who is an intruder in his world because he's hiding his homosexual feelings in the very, very macho world of the mafia. He's also an intruder in Jake's world as he forces Jake to deal violently with the homeless madman who has laid siege to his life.

But, then again, maybe I'm reading symbolism in to places where it doesn't belong. What the heck, it's fun. This book is a good read and has enough plot twists to satisfy all but the most jaded of readers.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: The Intruder by Peter Blauner.

Reviewed in 2004.

Hope Against Hope: A Mystery Introducing Alison Hope and Nick Trevellyan by Susan B. Kelly

I Hoped For Something More!

Originally published in 1991

The title of this book originates with the murder at the center of this mystery novel. Aidan Hope is found bludgeoned to death by a heavy glass ashtray in his bed and breakfast room. His cousin, and former partner in a software firm, Alison Hope, is accused of the murder. (Thus, Hope vs. Hope).

One of the fun things with the book is that it is set in England and is full of British-isms, such as the phrase "Sod you!" which must be about the same as "Screw you!" The mystery itself is not too bad, but the editing job was at times heavy-handed. At times, there is almost an excess of detail. But, at others, it feels like entire scenes have been cut to shorten the book. A smaller font would have been much more preferable to butchering the text.

My final grade is "3 stars", mostly due to poor editing and my irritation at it.

This book can be found on Amazon here: 
Hope Against Hope: A Mystery Introducing Alison Hope and Nick Trevellyan
 
Reviewed in 2004.

Final Argument by Clifford Irving

What Would You Do?

Originally published in 1994.

Imagine you're a defense lawyer but you used to be a prosecutor. Now, imagine you find out a career criminal that you put on Death Row is really innocent of the crime because you discover that the witness statements you used were all lies. Now, imagine that he's going to die in a month. What do you do?

Throw in a heaping handful of racial politics, Florida's fascination with the electric chair and the main characters fractured family life and you've got Clifford Irving's Final Argument. It started out very slow but I kept going and it turned out to be one of the better legal thriller books I've read for a while.

I give this book a "4 stars" - I'm dropping the score because of the slow start.

This book can be found in multiple formats on Amazon.com here: Final Argument by Clifford Irving. 

Reviewed in 2004.

Flintlock by Jason Manning

Good summer fun!

Originally published in 1994.

Flintlock is the frontier nickname of Nathaniel Jones, a deadeye shot on the Kentucky frontier. The book is ostensibly about Aaron Burr and his attempt to break the American West away from the rest of the United States in the early 1800s. For those of you not familiar with Burr, he was the former Vice President (Jefferson's first term) who killed America's first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton (the guy on your $10 bill) in a duel. This ruined his political career and he was accused of conspiring to turn the US territory East of the Mississippi and west of the Appalachians into a personal dictatorship.

Aaron Burr
(1756-1836)

The book has a rather large prologue (almost 1/2 of the book) that concerns young Flintlock's exploits as a teen in the Revolutionary War on the Virginia/Kentucky frontier. To be honest, that is the only complaint that I have with the book - its back cover does not accurately describe its contents. It's a fun summertime book, a quick read with lots of action and lots of historical background thrown in. Is it a great work of fiction, able to stand with Melville and Hemingway? No, but it is a fun little book that does all that it was ever intended to do - entertain a lot and educate a little.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Flintlock.

Reviewed in 2004.

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Holds up well

Originally published in 1951.

The Day of the Triffids is a classic end-of-the-world sci-fi novel set in England. 

Two bizarre things happen at the beginning of the novel to create disaster. Number 1: Science "discovers" walking plants that are named Triffids that can communicate among themselves. Our narrator, Bill Masen, believes that they are the result of Russian military testing, possibly meant to be a weapon, but they quickly spread all over the world. The Triffid is harmless enough until it grows to be man-sized. Then, it is able to walk by using its branches to swing its trunk, similar to the way a man on crutches walks. Once it walks, it is also able to hunt with this long whip-like tentacle with a poisoned tip. The Triffids like to eat putrid, rotting meat, much like a Venus Flytrap. It tears the meat loose with its tentacle.

The Triffids are more of a curiosity to the world, though until bizarre thing #2 happens: There is a meteor shower one night - it is very bright and people all over the world watch it because it goes on all night. The next day, everyone who saw any part of the shower goes blind. Our narrator, however, is not blind because he had hospitalized for eye surgery and his eyes had been bandaged the night of the shower. Masen believes the meteor shower was not a natural occurrence, but rather it was all a mistaken attack by an American or Russian satellite with a space-based radiation weapon.

The rest of the book concerns Masen and his struggle to survive. Everything collapses when 95% of the population goes blind. The whole of England becomes a Mad Max environment and different types of communities are formed to attempt to deal with the blind survivors, the Triffids and the threat from other sighted survivors.

All in all, it's a good read and it holds up well, considering it's age. Wyndham did a great job of predicting the Cold War and the buildup of weapons and the push to harness science for military applications. I would assume that this book had been read by the creators of Mad Max because they share a lot of the same images. However, don't get this book confused with the constant violence of the Mad Max movie The Road Warrior. Those scenes are rare, even if the settings are similar. This is a much more philosophical work, with lots of discussion about the nature of man.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.

Reviwed in 2004.