The Chase

The Chase - by Clive Cussler

To my knowledge, the first (only?) book penned solely by Clive Cussler that is not a Dirk Pitt story.  Adventure fans need not fear, as Cussler gives us a new hero just as worthy, with enough twists and turns to make things interesting.  This is for the Cussler fan that might be just be a tad tired of the Dirk Pitt tales.

Cussler takes us back a little over 100 years — 1906 to be precise, and there have been a series of bank robberies throughout the western part of the country.  Seems this robber is rather ruthless.  To help protect his identity, he kills everyone in the bank after he completes his dirty deed - men, women, children.  It makes no difference.

Enter Isaac Bell.  The swash buckling, wealthy, handsome, rugged detective of the fictitious  famed Van Dorn detective agency.  It seems that whenever there is a crime this sinister, only the best will do, which happens to be none other than Mr. Isaac Bell.  Although there aren’t that many similarities between Bell and the modern day Dirk Pitt, this guy could easily pass off as Pitt’s grandfather (knowing Cussler, it wouldn’t surprise me if he introduced such a notion in a future novel).  This guy can do no wrong.  Whether he’s involved in a fist-fight taking on a goon that has been dispatched to kill him, or calmly bluffing his way through a high stakes poker game, this is definitely the guy that you’d want on your side when things get ugly.

Since the story is 100 years in the past, we get simpler variations of the whole “bad guy” idea.  Instead of sinister villains threatening to destroy the world by causing fatal tidal shifts in the major oceans, we’re treated to simpler episodes such as railroads being blown up and banks being robbed.  Fortunately, Cussler is a master when it comes to detail. We see so many episodes of early twentieth century life - through the hills and canyons of the deserts, to the bustling cities such as San Francisco, we feel like we’re actually there.  If you know your history, you know what actually did happen in San Francisco back in 1906, and Cussler manages to fit the episode in well with the rest of the tale.

As usual in one of these books by this author, the villain is a pretty smart guy as well, and it seems as though our hero is the only one really capable to catch the crook.  True, there are always instances that are going to seem a bit unbelievable, such as when Pitt…..I mean Bell knows something bad is about to happen because “something just doesn’t feel right”, but for the most part, the journey is a pleasant, albeit bumpy and fast one.  The term “Chase” in the title is quite literal, as the last quarter of the book or so features just such a thing.  

If there’s one thing that is similar between this book and the modern day NUMA adventures is the author’s love for classic cars.  Or classic anything that has a motor and runs.  We meet all sorts of “modern” vehicles in this book, and Cussler goes into pretty extensive detail describing the look, the feel, the horsepower, the characteristics of all of these fangled machines.  Again though, the fact that these vehicles are “new” in this story as opposed to “old” just makes things a bit easier to digest and not feel as though you’ve read it all before.

As I write this review, there have been several other Isaac Bell books (the others were co-written with Justin Scott, I believe) and this is only the second that I’ve read.  I’ve thoroughly enjoyed both and am looking forward to the rest.  I also feel somewhat refreshed from all of the redundancy of the Dirk Pitt books, and I now feel I’m refreshed enough to pick up one of those again as well.   Great ride!

Deliver Us From Evil

Deliver Us From Evil  by David Baldacci

Although i generally really enjoy this author, he’s written some books that I consider a humongous waste of time.  I felt this way after reading his last one, True Blue (I’m reading his works sequentially).  Fortunately, I thought this one was much better - although a glance through reader’s reviews on Amazon tells us that many felt otherwise.

Not only does Baldacci have many books devoted to “King and Maxwell” and “The Camel Club”, but this story, as well features yet another recurring group of characters.  Our hero in this story is named Shaw.  I honestly don’t remember if he has a last name or not.  We first met him a few years ago in “The Whole Truth”.   He’s an older, powerfully trained government operative who is working somewhat against his will bringing down various bad guys all over the world.  He doesn’t really enjoy doing this kind of work, but those in power in Washington don’t care.  He’s good, and he’s needed.  If he doesn’t like it, tough.

His latest target is evil Evan Waller.  Not his real name, he’s actually a former evil KGB assassin that many think is dead.  He’s very much alive, and very much bad.  Among many of his sins are human trafficking, which seems to be about the worst thing anyone can be guilty of these days.

Well, it seems like there’s another clandestine group somewhere in England that works behind the scenes eliminating bad guys as well.  They’re a very well crafted organization, and one of their mercenaries is beautiful Reggie Campion.  She knows how to use her looks to her advantage, so she is recruited by her organization to go after the same exact guy that Shaw is targeting.  Quite the coincidence.

So we see Shaw and Campion show up in the same general vicinity of the target, and of course, being professionals, they’re quite wary of each other.  Who is this person so close to my target?  So there’s a lot of suspicion - especially when Campion befriends Evan Waller to win his trust (his lust, really), and things get murky in a hurry.

I won’t give away much more of the plot other than to say I thought the book took a nice neat turn into a direction that I didn’t think it would go.  If you read the first “Shaw” book, you remember Katie James.  She shows up here in this book as well, although I thought her presence was a bit unnecessary and mainly thrown in out of obligation to keep the character fresh in everyone’s mind.

I’ve really enjoyed the two “Shaw” books.  He seems quite cool and calm under pressure. and his advanced age (I’m guessing he’s in his 50s - don’t remember if Baldacci ever told us) makes his quick thinking quite believable as he always seems to know exactly what needs to happen to  get out of tight situations.  I’m not sure if there have been any other Shaw novels, but I wouldn’t mind reading more of his adventures.  Baldacci has been hit or miss for me recently.  Fortunately, this one was a plus for me.

Jaws

Jaws by Peter Benchley

It is absolutely impossible to read and review this book without thinking about the movie and the differences.  What many people don’t know, is that this book was a number one best-seller when it was written a year before the movie came out, and many people fell in love with it before the film was ever released.  Still, though, books don’t quite stay in the minds of most people as much as blockbuster movies, and we must remember that unlike post-1975, it was still possible to go swimming in the ocean without the thought of a shark ever entering one’s mind.

Our story takes place in a small ocean front town in the Northeast called Amity.  This is one of those beachfront towns that survive for the whole year based on how good the business is for the summer months when the rich people come to live for a few weeks.  If the summer isn’t a good one, the town struggles for the entire year with businesses shutting their doors and many going on welfare.  So when a giant killer shark rears its ugly head and kills a young woman right before the summer season starts, the powers that be in the town want to keep things quiet.  Why scare everyone away when a seemingly random incident happens to kill one person?

The chief of police in this town, Martin Brody, has other ideas. In his mind, the beaches must close, and the shark must be found and killed.  He’s pretty much alone in his opinion, yet finds out that just because he’s chief of police, that doesn’t mean he can do what he thinks is necessary.  It seems like there are too many powerful people pulling strings in this town, some backed by shady investors, and they refuse to let the town die because of a couple of freak accidents.  It’s amazing what the threat of a dying town will do to people.  Even though Brody is successful in some of his efforts to curb swimming, he’s viewed as a villain by everyone in this town.  When he does temporarily close the beaches, he puts the town one step closer to extinction.  When he can’t permanently close the beaches, however, then the family members of those killed by the shark view him as an irresponsible murderer.

Fortunately, Brody’s wife Ellen seems to stand by him.  Most of the time.  Here’s where this book falters.  You see, when Brody and Ellen got married (years before the book begins), Ellen was one of those rich summer people that Brody wooed away into marrying him.  Ellen must now live her life without the extravagance of the wealthy that she once knew.  She seems ok, until Matt Hooper comes into town.  Matt is a young, spoiled, good looking Ichthyologist that shows up to help discover how to stop the shark, and it just so happens that Ellen dated his older brother years ago.  So Ellen is suddenly driven into mid-life crisis mode, and is unintentionally smitten with Matt Hooper.  She even manages to sneak away with him for a romantic diversion.  This whole episode is sad, disturbing, and completely unnecessary.  As Steven Spielberg said when he read the book, the characters were so nasty, that he actually rooted for the shark.  I’ll bet he had Ellen and Hooper in mind when he made that statement.

Well, adversaries Brody and Hooper, along with an expensive shark killer named Quint, finally have no other alternative than to charter Quint’s boat and go after the beast.  The scenes in the movie during this final act of the play were quite brilliant.  In the book, however, the action is only so-so.  The ending of this book was about as anti-climactic and rushed as I’ve ever read, and it manages to bring the whole book down several notches.

This was still a very good, quick read.  Don’t expect it to be anywhere near as good as the movie, and don’t expect many of your favorite scenes to be here, either.  On its own, it was still a pretty good book, and quite unique in its subject matter - at least at the time.

Extraordinary Powers

Extraordinary Powers by Joseph Finder

Found this book in a box in my garage.  I have a lot of books in my garage, and I’m not really sure where a lot of them came from.  Every now and then I pick one up out of curiosity and decide to try it, even if I’m unfamiliar with the book, or the author.  I wasn’t exactly blown away by this one, and am not necessarily in any rush to read more of this author’s work, but I still thought this was a good read overall.

It’s impossible for one to read this book and not be reminded of Robert Ludlum.  If anything, this book was a bit of a “Ludlum Lite”.  That’s not to say this book is inferior to Ludlum, it just seemed to move at a more manageable pace and allow the characters to breathe.  It was also an easier book, I felt, to follow.

Ben Ellison is a successful patent lawyer, who used to be pretty good at his job as an agent in the CIA.  His father in law, in fact, is the Director of the CIA.  Or was.  As the book opens, the director has been killed in an “accident”.  Whenever you’re reading a book about the CIA and someone in power dies in an “accident”, you know something is amiss.  At the funeral, there’s another high level CIA operative there, and he tries to recruit Ben back to do some high level work for the agency.  Ben says “no thanks”, but books have also taught us that once you’re in the CIA, you really never leave.  So Ben is put into action against is will, so to speak.

What kind of action?  Not really worth describing here in that much detail.  Yes, the father-in-law’s mysterious death must be secretly investigated, and there were also a lot of weird dealings with other powerful countries by the director shorty before he died.  So Ellison manages to venture to….let’s see if I can remember…..Rome, Paris, London, Washington, and somewhere in Switzerland.  He uncovers a lot of mystery at the same time as he’s being pursued by foes - some obvious, some not so obvious.  The action is pretty par for the course with nothing too rattling, yet a good story overall.

Strangely, the title of this book is derived from an ‘extraordinary power’ that Ellison inadvertently receives before he begins his adventure.  I won’t reveal what that power is, it’s interesting, but I didn’t really thing it was that necessary.  I felt the story could have been told pretty well without Ben’s mysterious power.  Still, though, it didn’t really ruin anything in the story.

If you like espionage thrillers such as Robert Ludlum penned books, I would recommend this book.  It’s a bit dated - having been written in the early nineties shortly after the collapse of the USSR, which is what a lot of the focus is on, but it was still satisfying overall.

The Vanished Man

The Vanished Man by Jeffery Deaver

Jeffery Deaver’s books, especially the Lincoln Rhyme stories, seem to progressively get better.  I’ve thoroughly enjoyed each one of them, and they all tend to follow similar patterns, but he knows how to throw enough new elements to keep things fresh.

Our psychopathic killer that Lincoln is chasing this time is a professional ex-magician.  Now, when I say “magician”, I’m not talking about the guy that you hire for your third grader’s birthday party.  No, this guy is Las Vegas worthy.  This is what drives the main suspense through this book.  If a guy can stand on a stage at the MGM Grand and make himself disappear amidst burning flames with a wave of a magic wand, just imagine how creative he can escape from a crime scene after committing a murder.  So Lincoln really has his work cut out for him this time.  The author, as usual, does a very credible job of also educating his readers about a particular topic.  We learn a lot about magic, illusionists, the work one must put into to make such things convincing, etc.  

Hint: If you’re in law enforcement and you ever need to arrest a professional magician, you’ll probably need more than just a simple pair of handcuffs.

Of course, no Lincoln Rhyme book is complete without his partner Amelia Sachs.  They work well in this book as well, or as well as they can.  You see, Lincoln Rhyme is a quadriplegic.  So he’s mostly confined to working in his exquisite crime lab overlooking Central Park while Sachs does most of the legwork.  Yes, their romantically attached, yet this book seems to skip over a lot of that, which is nice for a change.  Let’s focus, boys and girls, on the actually plot, shall we?  Lincoln seems a tad less surly here than usual, which was also a bit of a refreshing change.

If you look closely within these pages, you find a lot of things that seem to happen incredibly coincidently, and there’s lot of disbelief that must be suspended.  If you try to focus on how believable that some of these events are, you’re likely to be disappointed with the book.  In other words, to use an analogy, when your watching a magician, it’s best not to always try to figure how the guy does a certain trick that just blew your mind.  Instead, just enjoy the show.  You’ll exit the theatre being much more satisfied.

Not the End of the World

Not the End of the World by Kate Atkinson

I’ve stated this in other reviews of this author’s work, but it bears repeating - Kate Atkinson is not for everyone.  This is true especially of this book.  This is a collection of short stories.  Stories that, in many cases, seem unfinished or without purpose.  Some are truly bizarre.  You will be scratching your head quite a bit as you finish these stories.  What was that all about?  You ask yourself.  Only at the end of the book do things start to slowly, finally, make sense.

Although you quite often feel disconnected, story wise, Atkinson’s main hook is her unique way with words.  So even though you’re not really sure where she’s going in many cases, she still manages to hook you in with her humorous, offbeat, yet somewhat depressing tales.  After reading five books by this author, I’m now convinced that she’ll never tell a happy story about happy people in any sort of happy situations.  This just isn’t her style.  Her main characters are quite often miserable in whatever existence they find themselves thrown in.  Most of the father figures and leading men are twits, and very few people in these pages believe in any sort of God, so they plod on day to day with sullen faces, hoping against hope that their fortunes will somehow miraculously turn.  Alas, they seldom ever do.

A major drawback to these short stories, ironically, is the fact that they all seem to end too quickly.  Every one of these stories seemed to suggest that, had the author wanted, she could have fleshed each of these tales out into a full novel.  One wishes she had.  See, even though the characters are quite downtrodden, Atkinson has such a humorous way of dealing with these characters that you tend to literally laugh out loud as you’re reading.

The short story bit was a nice idea, but I’m glad that she elected to go back to telling full length stories after this one was released.  If you’ve never read one of this author’s works, I implore you to start out with one of her full length books first (her first two were brilliant, I haven’t made may way around to reading most of the latter stuff).  If you truly enjoy her bizarre style, there’s a good chance you’ll like this quirky diversion she presents here.

True Blue

True Blue by David Baldacci

Mr. Baldacci owes his fans an apology.  I say that not because this book is awful (which it is), but because I simply refuse to believe that he actually wrote this book.  I always get a bit suspicious when an author seems to release two or three books per year.  O.K., I suppose it is possible, but one wonders if someone else actually penned this thing, with Baldacci simply looking over their shoulder for about five minutes per week to ensure that there’s some sort of coherence.

If you've read Baldacci, you know his schtick.  His books seem to always take place in Washington D.C., and there’s some sort of murder, kidnapping, assassination, and/or terrorist attack that has taken place or will take place.  We usually uncover that, tangled up in this web, are usually some high profile types (even the President himself) that are pulling the strings behind these catastrophes.  Such is the case here as well, and it’s not the actual story that is bad, it’s the idiotic, under developed characters that we’re forced to believe have any resemblance to actual people.

Our hero here is a female cop named Mace.  Mace is one of those cops who doesn’t “follow the rules”.  She’s actually an ex-cop because, as our story begins, she’s being released from prison after serving her time for a crime that she, apparently, didn’t commit.  Fortunately for Mace, her sister is the Chief of Police in Washington D.C.  So Mace, eager to regain her reputation, sets out to prove she’s innocent and was set up.  Now, normally I don’t post spoilers when I post reviews, but this book was so bad, that I really don’t care if I break protocol:  Mace never meets her objective.  The story simply takes an abrupt turn somewhere within these pages, and we get sidetracked into another story that really doesn’t have anything to do what Mace originally set out to do.

Instead, there’s a mysterious murder that happens at a law firm, Mace tags along with her sister to the crime scene, and starts an investigation on her own since she’s no longer a cop.  So Mace teams up with one of the lawyers at the firm who knew the victim, and manages to break a library full of rules since she’s violating her parole and isn’t supposed to be conducting any kind of investigation.  Of course, her sister reprimands her with the obvious threats of “sending her back to prison” over and over, but ol’ Mace simply doesn’t care.  It seems her life is now a “prison anyway” since she can’t be a cop anymore.  Yeah.  Right.  Whatever.

So we read about Mace racing through the badlands of Washington D.C. on her Ducati (an Italian motorcycle, I think) while wearing high heals and getting herself in trouble, yet managing to weasel her way out of situations in the most unbelievable ways possible.  In one instance, she encounters a thug in a rough part of town while she’s with her lawyer friend, and manages to avoid a violent death by having her friend challenge the thug to a basketball game.  If her friend wins the game, they get to have their lives spared.

I swear I didn’t make that up.

We’re then introduced to so many ridiculous characters that have absolutely nothing to do with the story (neither the original tale, nor the one we’re detoured towards).  If they do have something to do with the story, the people are so one-dimensional, that you actually can feel your stomach turning as you’re trying to turn the pages.  We meet the prosecutor that sent Mace to prison, who doesn’t have one ounce of kindness in her.  She reminded me of Cruella De Ville from that Disney movie.  Such characters work in cartoon fantasies, but they sure as heck don’t work in any attempt at serious literature.  We could say the same about the encounter with her estranged mother.  We also read far too much about Mace’s new job as a social worker.  Nothing within these situations matters a lick in terms of where the book is supposed to be going.

Reading this book reminded me of those times when you’re fighting to stay awake late at night to finish a particularly dull movie.  You don’t really want to stay up, but you keep shaking your head because you’ve figured that you’ve made it far enough in the movie to where it becomes a challenge to just get through the stupid thing.  When you wake up exhausted the next day, you curse yourself for wasting your time on such an idiotic movie.  This was what reading the last 100 pages or so of this book felt like.  I think I managed to finish the last 100 pages in about 10 minutes, since I couldn’t make myself read every awful word on every awful page.

What’s really scary, is that Baldacci could bring back these unpleasant people in future books.  There is still too many unanswered questions about Mace and company, but it simply isn’t worth it to bring these characters back to life.  Let’s hope Baldacci retires these idiots and sticks to King and Maxwell and The Camel Club.   Please.

Never Dream of Dying

Never Dream of Dying by Raymond Benson

It is now official: Rayond Benson writes James Bond books better than Ian Fleming.  O.K., O.K., that’s just my opinion, but it’s one I hold steadfast.  This was the fifth of Benson’s six Bond novels, and the majority of them have been terrific page turners.  I use the term “page turner” quite literally.  The action moves quite fast in Benson’s novels, yet he packs them full of adventure.  

Not everyone enjoys Benson’s style, however.  If you read some reviews from readers on Amazon, you’ll note that there are, in fact, a handful of faithful that actually prefer Ian Fleming’s dedication to detail.  One fan complained something like this: 

“In a Benson book, the author simply tells you that Bond put on a sport jacket.  In Fleming’s books, he’ll also tell you the fabric and the tailor”.  

Well, I suppose that’s true, but I personally don’t give a rip what the fabric is, nor who the tailor was.  I really probably wouldn’t even retain the fact that Bond is even wearing a sport jacket once I’m a couple of paragraphs past such a revelation.  

What I do care about is the bad guys, the Bond girls, the gadgets, the obligatory meeting with M and with Q, the flirting with Moneypenny (known mostly as ‘Penny’ in the books) and of course, the action.  In all of these areas Benson consistently does a wonderful job.  I can usually finish these books in three or four sittings since the action moves so quickly and the plot so entertaining.

This book is the third (and final) installation of the “Union” trilogy.  The Union is an organization very similar to SPECTRE of the original Bond books.  Like SPECTRE, there’s a colorful villain that heads the organization, a mysteriously blind man known as Le Gerant who seems to literally have some sort of bizarre second sight.  Yes, there is sort of a plot here, but what this book really is, is James Bond tracking down the head of this agency and wanting to do away with him once and for all (it’s been three books now, after all).  We also meet some of the old support characters that only true fans will probably remember.  Rene Mathis from Casino Royale shows up (the character was also in the Daniel Craig movie that came out a few years later than this book) as well as Bond’s ex-father in law Marc-Ange Draco.  It’s instances like these that make Benson’s James Bond slightly more believable.  Bond is also much more human in these books, he never comes across as full of wit and infallibility as the cinematic Bond.

The only minor complaint that I had about this book, is that there are several characters (including Bond and the bad guy) that start having weird, mystical like dreams during the story that seem to reveal the destiny of the characters.  I was reminded of Stephen King’s The Stand when all the characters started having Mother Abigail dreams.  Such an idea works very well in a Stephen King book, but not so much in a James Bond book.  This is where we get the title of this particular book.  Still, it’s only a minor gripe.

It seems a bit of a gyp that these books were written at a time where most people didn’t really care about the Bond books anymore.  I would recommend Benson’s efforts - even to those who claim that they’re not a James Bond fan.  They might be pleasantly surprised by what he has to offer.

The Wrecker

The Wrecker by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott

At last!  A Clive Cussler book that doesn’t take place primarily on WATER!  This was my first (his second) “Isaac Bell” adventure.  So far, I’ve read three other “series” by Cussler, and all of them take place on some sort of sea worthy vessel with good guys chasing bad guys and vice versa.  

These Isaac Bell stories take place around the year 1907, and Isaac Bell is the swashbuckling hero of the Van Dorn Detective Agency.  Oh sure, he’s wealthy, smart, good looking, etc., but at least this guy has a steady girlfriend.  In fact, he’s engaged to be married and is quite the sweetheart.

This book revolves around railroads and trains.  Lots of trains.  And lots of railroads.  I’ve never read a book that featured so many different trains and different railroads.  Well, I guess these things were quite the novelty around the turn of the twentieth century, and societies quickly became dependent on this new found mode of transportation.  Those who owned railroads were very wealthy indeed.  Which is where the premise of this story is founded.

It seems as though there is a mysterious figure known only as “The Wrecker” who is running around sabotaging trains, train stations, bridges, train tunnels, etc.  He’s quite the master at what he does, and quite the evil man.  He won’t think twice about hiring goons to do his dirty work and then quickly killing them afterwards to protect his own identity.  When one railroad tycoon (who just happens to have young, beautiful daughter quite smitten with Bell) starts to slowly have his empire destroyed by this “Wrecker”, the Van Dorn detective agency is called in and Isaac Bell is thrown into action.

I really enjoyed this book on many levels.  The action was very fast paced, yet never seemed too implausible.  There’s even a James Bond-like poker game in the middle of the book that is filled with heart stopping tension.  Strangely, we actually do discover the real identity of the Wrecker about halfway through the book, yet Cussler and Scott know how to use this revelation to their advantage, and it actually adds to the story.  You don’t feel ripped off because you know whodunnit so early on.

Although this was Cussler’s second Isaac Bell novel, this was the first one where he used a co-author, which brings up the debate amongst fans as to whether or not Cussler is actually doing much, if any, of the writing at all for these adventures.  One tends to be a bit skeptical when Cussler, along with a different co-author, manages to put out three or four books per year.  It seems he’s writing them faster than his fans can read them.  I guess this really shouldn’t matter as long as the book is good, and this one is very good.  I almost wish I would have started at the “beginning” and read the first Isaac Bell book before this one, but like many, I can’t keep straight all of the different series and different books.  It will be my next one….

The Worst Team That Money Could Buy

The Worst Team Money Could Buy by Bob Klapisch and John Harper

I was a huge New York Met fan back in the 1980s.  This was the era when if you loved baseball, you either loved or hated this team.  Since I started cheering for them back in 1984, two years before most outside the tri-state area knew much about them, I feel I was justified as not being one that “jumped on the bandwagon” as many did when they won it all in 1986, when it seemed as though a dynasty had been born.

Well, unfortunately for the Metropolitans, history had other ideas.  Although the Mets had some strong years following the ’86 triumph, they never captured their original magic of that one season.  By the time the early 1990s arrived, the team was embarrassingly awful.  That’s not to suggest that the owners didn’t try to revamp the team.  The executives figured that since their coffers were larger than most, they could simply go out and “buy” a team of superstars to wear the blue and orange and bring back the magic, which is exactly what they did before the 1992 season began.  The Mets of 1992 may have been the best team in baseball on paper.  The problem was, on the baseball diamond, they stunk.

This book mainly chronicles the 1992 season, yet slowly sutures the teams fall from their championship season six short years ago.  The authors, Bob Klapisch and John Harper were actually beat writers from two of the major New York papers, so no one really had better access to the goings ons both on and off the field.  

Oh, the drama!  There are rape investigations, drugs, press boycotts, sex, drugs, team mates fighting during team pictures, assault charges, and more drugs.  Add a lot of injuries to some star players, along with a bunch of guys who simply don’t have the chemistry, and you have one miserable season.

Klapisch and Harper detail a lot of events from the prior years leading up to the downfall, and many players that were long gone from the team by 1992, such as Darryl Strawberry and Gregg Jeffries, get as much page space as the current lineup.  The authors state in the Forward that this book was a way to get revenge against a bunch of spoiled cry babies, but what this book really is, is a lesson in mismanagement.  Sure, everything gelled in 1986, but whenever you have high priced ball players with a knack for trouble and hyperactive libidos, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that it won’t take long before the kingdom comes crashing down, which is precisely what happens.  

Their “renegade” manager that takes them to the 86 championship, Davey Johnson, is hailed as a hero that year because he “treats his players like men” and doesn’t enforce many rules on the club.  Trouble is, treating your players like men won’t work when they act like spoiled brats.  A few years later, Johnson can’t handle this out-of-control bunch, and is eventually fired.  By the time 1992 arrives, the new skipper, Jeff Torborg arrives, and he has the opposite problem of being too controlling, so the team is basically in trouble.

There’s a lot of dirt within these pages, and it’s actually quite funny to see how the spoiled mighty fall.  It should be noted, however, that one really has to read this book with a large grain of salt.  The authors, remember, were beat writers, and in New York City, these guys could be brutal between the lines when reporting.  Unlike most cities, New York had seven major newspapers at the time, so in order to make your publication sell over your competitors, you had to seriously juice up your headlines and stories.  It’s no surprise that there is so much animosity between the authors and the players they cover.  Sure, the authors admit this, but they present themselves as a bit too innocent.  

Example: We read about the authors’ perception that the Mike Sciocia home run of Doc Gooden in the 1988 Championship series was the “turning point” against the Mets that caused their downfall during the playoffs, yet what really killed them was when Bob Klapisch co-authored a newspaper article with Mets pitcher David Cone after game one of the NLCS where Cone belittled the Dodgers and compared them to a “high school team”.  Once the Dodgers got wind of this newspaper story, their tempers were flared, and they turned the heat up about 1000 degrees and basically killed the Mets chances from that point forward.  Was Klapisch obliged not to print the story?  Absolutely not.  But David Cone comes across as one of the “heroes” of this book, when it actually was an act of pure stupidity for him to do such a thing.  You won’t read much about that incident here since one of the authors played such a large role in this boner.

What you will read (that is also incorrect) is how the Mets made the biggest mistake of the decade by not resigning Darryl Strawberry after the 1989 season.  The authors seem to think that, despite the troubled right-fielder’s problems (which you would need a mainframe computer to keep track of), his arrogance and dominance on the field were sadly missing during 1992.  Anyone that follows the game knows how wrong this was in hindsight, as Strawberry continued to spiral downwards even after he left the Mets.

Then we hear about all of those awful trades that the Mets made after the 1986 season that dismantled the championship caliber that made these guys clique so well.  I’m sorry, but I never bought into that.  Kevin McReynolds was just as good as Kevin Mitchell, Ray Knight wasn’t getting any younger, and even the “fiasco” of trading Len Dykstra and Roger McDowell for Juan Samuel deserves closer examination.   Fact: The 1989 Mets played better after this trade was made in midseason (check out their Won-Loss record for that season, before and after the trade).

So the authors are highly skilled in writing, as this book shows, yet a tad biased.  It’s also a remarkable study on what happens when you give a bunch of guys in their mid twenties more money, more women, and more “potentials” that most can handle.  It’s a true test of character to run a successful franchise with personalities such as this, and sadly, the New York Mets of the late eighties-early nineties blew it in a bad way.

U is for Undertow

Sue Grafton - U is for Undertow

The first Alphabet Series mystery featuring Kinsely Milhone  (‘A is for Alibi’) was written 27 years prior to this book.  For obvious reasons, the main character ages a lot more slowly, so by the time we get to this book (the 21st), our hero has only aged about five years and is living in 1988.  The downside to this is that it must be awfully hard for Sue Grafton to find new things to write about when fleshing out the life of Kinsey.  It doesn’t help when the character is a bit of a loner and an introvert.

What Sue Grafton starting doing a few books ago, was to tell these stories a bit differently.  In addition to seeing the world through the eyes of Kinsey, we’re allowed to visit other scenes with other characters that were told in third person.  Some of scenes happen decades ago.  This can be confusing to some of the faithful, especially those who aren’t a big fan of change.  I find these diversions welcome, however, and as blasphemous as it may sound, I almost enjoy these third person scenes better than the familiar ones with Kinsey.  I guess I feel I already know Kinsey well enough to keep reading about Quarter Pounders and her black all-purpose dress over and over.

For this book, Kinsey is approached by a young man who is convinced that he witnessed a burial of a kidnapping victim by a couple of thugs.  Problem is, this alleged event happened about twenty years ago when this guy was only in Kindergarten.  It seems a bit of a stretch, but Kinsey does take on the case and she does start to slowly put some pieces together.  I wouldn’t think such as a task would be quite this easy in real life.  As mentioned, we’re allowed to go back in time to the 1960s when the kidnapping actually happened, and we witness, first hand, many of the main players.  I really enjoyed the book, but thought, in retrospect, that it did seem quite unbelievable.

Of course, Grafton (or maybe Kinsey?) still has a bad problem of being overly descriptive.  Many readers have complained (and I concur) that these stories simply have too much detail when describing the scenery, the food, the color of the person’s hair, the shape of the person’s lips, and on and on and on.  Grafton could easily cut about 25% of the book without all of these unnecessary details.  Then, we still read about Kinsey’s everyday activities, regardless of whether or not they have anything to do with the case being solved.  I get a little tired of the 95 year old landlord, the Hungarian owner of the restaurant, the ever present failed romances, etc. etc.

This book takes us on a side detour of Kinsey’s long lost relatives (who, not surprisingly, she doesn’t really want any contact with) that she has only recently discovered.  It seems as though Kinsey was raised by an Aunt after her parents were killed in a car accident when she was about five years old.  For years, her Aunt was her only relative that she knew still existed.  So a lot of unnecessary drama in this area as well is featured within the pages.  Cut all of this out, and you could shave another 25%.

I’m guessing book publishers operate under the assumption that “more is better” and they can get more revenue from a 400 page book as opposed to a 200 page book, so the stories do seem a bit long.  It’s still a very, quick, enjoyable read however, and I applaud Grafton for taking a few new steps to try to keep things fresh.

Even though the story is a bit silly, I found the overall experience very enjoying and would recommend this book to all lovers of Kinsey Milhone.  As I’m writing this, Sue Grafton has written two newer Kinsey Milhone books that I have not read yet, and I’m hoping she continues with her new found method of story telling.

Winter of the World

Ken Follett - Winter of the World

Ken Follett is one of my very favorite authors.  I haven’t read anything by him in quite a while because, well, I’ve already read everything he’s written.  This is Book 2 of the “Century Trilogy”.  The book has actually been out for a couple of years, but I have been refusing to buy it because of the ridiculous expense (even the Kindle version seems abnormally high).  I finally snagged the e-version on sale for about six bucks.  I had read Book 1 about three years ago and was very impressed with it.  The downside for me is that three years is a long time, and I had essentially forgotten everything that happened in volume 1 except for 1) the majority of the story took place during World War I -and- 2) The book had four main plot lines, each one taking place in a different country of the major players of the First World War.

Well, fortunately, a photographic memory really isn’t necessary for this, the second installation.  Essentially, most of the major players in Book 1 have been relegated to supporting roles, and the many offspring of those characters have now assumed center stage.  And there are a lot of characters.  Fortunately, Follett includes a “Cast of Character” section at the beginning of the book since it’s very easy to get a bit lost within the +800 pages.  The author also does an admirable job of throwing in little snippets within the story to remind you of who the character is, what their background is, who they’re romantically smitten with, etc. etc.

We have four main stories, or “sets” of characters.  One in Russia, Germany, England, and the United States respectively.  All of them are affected by the Second World War in different ways, and even though we have four different locations, all of these characters are somehow “connected” to each other in some bizarre way, so the plots do nicely fit in with each other.

Like the first book, Follett is also attempting to give his readers a bit of a history lesson as well.  Our characters find themselves right in the thick of many of the major events leading up to, and during and after, World War II.  We find many of our main characters literally in the same rooms with Adolph Hitler, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt.  So, yes, at times the book seems a bit “Forrest Gump-ish”, but I never found it too much of a distraction most of the time.  Still, though, in an instance where we read about a couple going to Hawaii for a vacation in late 1941, well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s about to happen to the poor couple.

This book covers the years 1933-1949, and even though it’s over 800 pages, it seemed a bit as though Follett was rushing through too much (which is a sign of great book, if you think about it).  I almost wish he would have fleshed this series out into more books and tell the story a bit slower.  I’m reminded of John Jakes “The Kent Chronicles” that warranted eight books.  Maybe Ken Follett simply didn’t have it in him to write that much, but I would have enjoyed reading more about these characters and their stories.  I almost felt like I was reading an abridged version of the different stories.  Ironically, the years after the war (1946-1949) he zooms by entirely too fast, and he mainly uses these years for all of the couples to miraculous give birth to several babies so we can have some protagonists for the third (and final) volume.  Even more ironic is that when I went back and read my review that I wrote for Book 1, I made the exact same observations in that volume for the Post World War I years.

The only complaint I have with this book, is that Ken Follett doesn’t know when to “shut up” during the sex scenes.  With all of these young lovers running around courting one another, there’s an awful lot of romance, yet Mr. Follett feels obliged to tell us what is going on inside the bedroom in nauseating, pornographic detail.  Some of the scenes within these pages would make Hugh Hefner gag.  I mean, he can get really, really disgusting.  Then, we have a scene where we see two (clandestine) homosexual lovers (there is a lot of homosexuality in this book) that are fighting for their country in the U.S. Navy, and they’re on a ship getting ready to do battle.  For some reason, the author feels obliged to say something stupid like “In addition to fighting for their country, they also loved the fact that they could watch other naked sailors taking showers”.  Or something like that.  Mr. Follett, is this really necessary??

So get past the pornography, and you really do have an excellent book here.  It’s not really even necessary to read Book 1, but I would recommend it.  Like this one, the first volume is outstanding as well.

Hell's Kitchen

Hell's Kitchen by Jeffery Deaver

This was the third, and final, installment of the “Location Scout” mysteries penned by Jeffery Deaver.  Actually, it was written under his pseudonym “William Jefferies” for whatever reason.  These books by Deaver aren’t as strong as most of his latter day thrillers, particularly the Lincoln Rhyme stories.  In these books, the protagonist is John Pellam, a veteran of many Hollywood productions, mostly as a stunt man.  Being a stunt man takes Pellam all over the country, so such settings for a mystery can always be fresh.

In this book, Pellam is venturing out on his own, so to speak, and is producing a documentary on the famed Hell’s Kitchen in West Manhattan.  Hell’s Kitchen, at least during the time this book was written, is not a happy place.  A lot of crime, drugs, crack mothers, and overworked social workers.  As the story opens, Pellam is on his way to continue a series of interviews with 70 year old Ettie Washington, a longtime resident of Hell’s Kitchen, when her building explodes in an inferno just as Pellam is walking up the stairs.  Both Pellam and Washington survive, and Pellam spends the book searching for the reason of the fire, trying to pinpoint the guilty party.

It won’t be easy.  Apparently the investigators think 70 year old Washington was responsible, so she’s quickly arrested and hauled away.  They don’t think she actually started the inferno, yet paid a professional whacked-out arsonist.  It seems the arsonist is continuing to strike all over Manhattan, so the authorities want Washington to confess, and talk about what she knows.   This way,  they can locate this loon before he can do too much more damage.  Of course, Pellam believes she’s innocent, so he spends this entire story being harassed by authorities since he’s “friends” with the woman, in addition to uncovering clues within this dangerous environment.

What I never figured out was: if this deranged arsonist/nut is running around picking random targets to incinerate, why do the authorities believe that he was paid by a 70 year old impoverished woman to start the first one?  Couldn’t the original fire been a random target as well?  And it seems a bit far fetched that a 70 year old woman whose lived here her entire life would be a person who could be considered a serious accomplice.  This was a big strike against this book for me.

So Pellam plows through the streets, talking to all sorts of undesirables and putting himself in harm’s way in many occasions.  These thugs don’t like strangers coming into their territory asking a lot of questions.  Since Pellam is a professional stunt man, he knows how to handle a weapon and defend himself pretty well, and he does have somewhat of a motivation.  He’s not exactly well off in the finance deparment, and he’s put a lot of his own money into this documentary, so if his star subject goes to prison, it doesn’t exactly make his product very marketable.

So we see him going from place to place within Hell’s Kitchen, and every environment that he’s visits is horribly dirty and disgusting.  This book almost makes you want to take a bath after reading.  As Deaver usually does, though, he introduces a lot of different characters, a lot of plot twists, and you’re never quite sure where he’s going.  He manages to fool and/or surprise the reader quite frequently so it does make the book a good read.  I just wish the location had been a bit more desirable - along with the main plot.  I’ll also say that Hell’s Kitchen is, in fact, a real place, but due to gentrification and the overall improvement of Midtown Manhattan, it’s not nearly the hell hole it once was.  Visitors to the Big Apple shouldn’t be too scared.   

This was my second of the three “Location Scout” books.  As much as I like Jeffery Deaver, I’m kind of hoping that we’ve seen the last of them.  They’re really not bad, it’s just that Deaver can, and has, done much better.

American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964

American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964 – by William Manchester

I was first introduced to William Manchester when I read his wonderful three volume series of the life of Winston Churchill.  Even though I thoroughly enjoyed that series, each book was about 1,000 pages long, and 3,000 pages of the life of anybody is a bit much.  Well, this one was only one volume and “only” about 800 pages, so it was much easier to tackle.  800 pages is still quite a lot, but I felt it was the perfect amount for the subject matter.

There are some that call this retrospective too one-sided, and claim that there’s too much “pro” Douglas MacArthur here.  That might be true, but I find that what I read within these pages was pretty much accurate in terms of what most knew about the man.  He’s painted as a very confident man, yet pretty cocky as well.  There always seems to be a radiant halo around this man, yet much of the glowing seems to be originated from the man himself.  Not that he doesn’t deserve much of this praise, he simply seems to be drawing attention to his accomplishments since he knows that this attention only is helping the cause of the fighting – whatever the particular cause might be.  He’s also portrayed as quite fearless.  There are many times in combat, for example, where the man marches into unfriendly territory in the heat of a battle, inspecting front lines, causing his advisors to panic as they try to get their commander to act more cautiously.  This man seems to somehow know that no harm will come to him.  His reply to his nervous aides is that, if he cowers from the enemy on the front lines, how can he expect his soldiers to act any different?

Part of what makes this book so appealing is that the major events of this man’s life seem to get more and more interesting as the book, and the man’s life, progress.  On that note, it should be pointed out that the book starts out rather dull.  We begin with a synopsis of some of his ancestors (his father and grandfather as I recall) and their lives as soldiers during the Civil War and other key events of the nineteenth century.  I guess this was to educate the reader of the man’s military “history”, but I found it unnecessary.

We then move rather quickly through the first half century of the man’s life.  We learn about his family background that is entrenched in the military already, including a meddlesome mother who seems to use her connections help her boy get promoted throughout his career.  We briefly learn about some of his escapades in the first World War (where he is promoted to Brigadier General), and his tenure as Superintendent of West Point for a few years following the conclusion of World War I.

This book really becomes interesting around the late 1930s, as MacArthur is assigned as a military advisor in the Philippines.  Although things are quite unstable already, nothing is as bad as when the second World War breaks out, and the Japanese attack the Philippines a mere few days after Pearl Harbor.  Mac is determined to fight to the end, but his country desperately needs his military skills as a leader.  So rather than fight to the death in the Philippines, he and his family are evacuated off of Corregidor Island under dangerous conditions to the continent of Australia.  This is what prompted the famous “I Shall Return” speech.  This entire episode would make a great book in and of itself.

So MacArthur is now Commander of the Armed Forces in the Far East, and we see methodically how he turns the tide in favor of the U.S., culminating in the end of the war with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Then we witness events which, for me, became the most fascinating part of the life of Douglas MacArthur.  Unlike most conquering armies in the recorded history of civilization, MacArthur is an extremely magnanimous vanquisher.  The misguided Japanese have visions of being raped, pillaged and enslaved at the end of the war.  After all, that’s what the victor is supposed to do to their subjects.  Right?  Well, time and time again, the U.S. shows that this isn’t how you treat a defeated nation.  Instead, MacArthur, as ruler of Japan, brings reform to the people, slowly building them up to a proud nation while eliminating aspects of their recent barbaric history.  Of course the Japanese now revere the man as a god, yet it really isn’t all that surprising considering just how far he has turned things around in this nation.

Then, we come to Korea.  The final “chapter” in MacArthur’s life is probably the most ugly.  Without going into too much detail, MacArthur and President Harry Truman have very different ideas as to how to handle this war…..excuse me…..Police Action, and tempers are, indeed, hot on both sides.  Long story short, most love MacArthur, yet really don’t know what to think about Harry Truman.  MacArthur’s ego, rather than Truman’s orders, guide many of the general’s decisions, eventually leading to his firing.  After his dismissal, most on the home front are enraged and MacArthur is treated as a hero when he returns stateside, much to President Truman’s consternation.  There are endless ticker tape parades, speeches, and fainting women, yet when MacArthur is brought before a subcommittee in congress, it’s proven that Truman did the right thing.  What was quite fascinating, yet rather depressing, was to see so many lines drawn in the sand during this conflict between the two political parties (MacArthur was a diehard Republican).   Things were quite nasty.  Anyone who thinks that partisan politics has only become awful in later years need only study this particular timeframe to note that idiotic partisan bickering, sadly, is nothing new.

After the whole Korea thing, it does seem that the general does indeed seem to quietly fade away.  Yes, he’s still around, and he still gets in the spotlight from time to time, but nothing seems to be quite as prevalent as the time frame between 1937-1952.

This was a great book, and William Manchester seems to know, for the most part, where to spend the majority of his focus when writing about his subject.  I’m also glad that this was only one volume instead of three.

Emotionally Weird

Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson

I mentioned in a previous review that Kate Atkinson is my “new favorite author”.  I’m still going to let her claim that title in my heart, but to be brutally honest, her third book (the fourth I’ve read by her) is the first one that I would define as less than spectacular.  Ironically, Atkinson’s gift isn’t necessarily telling a good story, but rather her ability to draw you in with her off-beat characters along with their observations and descriptions about their bizarre situations.  I say “ironic” because it is the story that lacks here, but it lacks so much, that it does bring down the whole experience a notch.

There’s actually several different stories going on here, and none of them are happening at the same time.  In other words, this book is a story about a character who is telling a story, and within that story, another character is telling another story. And so on and so on.  Kind of like that stupid movie Inception (some people liked that movie.  I have no idea why) where characters were dreaming inside of their dreams, inside of other dreams, etc.   In this book, I’m not even quite sure which is the “main” story, and which is the “invented tale”.  It can be that confusing.

What I think is the main story consists of college-aged Effie and her somewhat aloof Mom, Nora.  We don’t know much about these two, other than mother and daughter are drifters.  They basically have no home, and tend to find themselves in a different sea port town every couple of months or so.  There’s a lot of mystery around this relationship.  What is their past?  Why do they have no home?  How exactly do they survive?  Well, the author doesn’t tell us much at all (until the very end), yet instead, the majority of this book is a story that young Effie tells.  Effie’s tale (I think it might be a partially “true” story, but I’m not really sure) is about life at a small English college where she’s studying literature.  This takes place around 1972, and it seems like at this particular college, the only thing studied is composition, writing theories, and anything related to literature.

This is where we really see the author’s strengths shine.  Like every other Atkinson novel (at least the ones I’ve read), all of the characters seemed destitute and somewhat miserable, yet Atkinson presents the story in a rather humorous way.  None of these kids want to really learn anything.  They all sleep a lot, have a lot of physical contact with one and other, live in squalor-like conditions, have children out of wedlock, and do a lot of drugs.   There’s really too many characters to keep track of (another trait of Atkinson), and it seems like every one of these kids is always being hunted down by a teacher about a paper that’s overdue.

Well, since Effie is learning about Creative Writing or whatever, we also see many of her unfinished stories throughout the pages that, I guess serve some sort of purpose, but simply seemed too much of a distraction.  There’s also too many strange things that happen that make her life a bit silly, but since this is really the “story within the story”, I’m thinking it’s supposed to be that way for some strange reason.  Maybe the author’s intention is to make this novel some sort of work of art where readers debate back and forth what the real meanings and intentions are with some of the bizarre instances that happen within the pages?

I must say that despite all the confusion, the ending of this book was nicely done, and I thought that it tied up all of the loose ends really well, but I still felt a bit disappointed after reading some of her other books.  That leads me to conclude that if you’ve never read this author, I would highly recommend another selection in her catalog to get you started.   Her style isn’t for everyone, and I would only advise this book for those that would call themselves fans.  Others may be too put off by her odd style.

Sycamore Row

Sycamore Row – by John Grisham

Some have advertised this as the “sequel” to Grisham’s first novel “A Time To Kill”.  That’s a bit of a stretch.  It’s more like another story using many of the same characters from Grisham’s first effort that rightly propelled the author to stardom.  In that novel, Grisham told us the story of a young lawyer named Jake Brigance who defended an African-American man after he killed two white redneck racists after they raped his little girl.  Being that the story took place in the Deep South in the 1980s, the story was filled with racial overtones.  It was a great book and, at the risk of divulging a spoiler, it had a very satisfying conclusion.

Well, in real life, after such a momentous occasion, the good guys rarely live happily ever after.  Even though Jake becomes a celebrity, things quickly go back to normal, and he ends up being just another lawyer in a small town that’s already too crowded with lawyers.  

So he plods along the best he can trying to keep himself, his wife, and his young daughter above the poverty level.

Then he receives a letter.  It’s actually a revised will from a dying millionaire named Seth Hubbard, who has just committed suicide by hanging himself.  In the new will, Hubbard  essentially disinherits his entire family, and wants to leave the bulk of his fortune to his African-American housekeeper.  Jake is to be the executor of the will.

So Grisham then does what Grisham does best.  He tells a tale of how such an event is likely to occur, while at the same time, educating his readers on many aspects of the legal profession.  The task of throwing the old will out the window and replacing it with the new one isn’t going to be easy.  There are too many greedy lawyers and clients around and everyone is throwing wrenches into the work to discredit the revised will.    Was Seth delusional?  After all, the mad DID kill himself.  Was he doped up on pain medication?  And who is this mysterious housekeeper anyway?  Was there hanky-panky going on between the two?  Did SHE somehow coax him into this?

And on and on and on.  Fortunately, Jake knows the law pretty well, but he’s drastically outnumbered and outspent.  The good thing about Jake’s situation is that he is getting paid pretty well for the entire process regardless of the outcome.  Still, however, Jake is a lawyer with high moral standards (such creatures are rare in a Grisham novel), so he’s doing his due diligence and working long hours to ensure justice is done.

This is a very typical Grisham novel.  For the most part, that is a good thing.  You never get bored hearing about how the legal system really works as opposed to how it’s supposed to work.  The one drawback I had about this story is it seem to contain an awful lot of red herrings.  There were simply too many side stories and episodes that really didn't add much to the entire plot, yet I kept thinking that they somehow would.  One episode in particular has Jake and family pondering buying a rather expensive house since money is now coming in.  I kept wanting to warn Jake that this money would only be temporary, and what good would it be to have a nice expensive house once this case is over and you’re back to thinking about food stamps??

I’d also add that reading the first “episode”, A Time to Kill, isn’t really necessary, although I would recommend reading that one as well since it is one of Grisham’s best.  This was a very good read, although I’m a bit tired of the whole “the real legal profession” shtick.  Grisham has written a few novels about stuff other than law, and most of those books have been equally as rewarding.  I would like to see him dabble more frequently in different genres.

First Family

First Family – by David Baldacci

This is probably my favorite Baldacci book so far (I’m reading them sequentially).  I’m a bit surprised as I seem to prefer his “Camel Club” offerings as opposed to the “King and Maxwell” episodes, which is what this one is.  Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are your typical crime solving duo.  Both single, both incredibly attractive, yet the relationship is purely platonic so we can focus on action without too many distractions.  Since they’re based in the Washington D.C. area, many of their crime solving adventures involve high level officials within the powerful corridors of the government.

This one is no different.  It seems the President’s 12 year old niece has been kidnapped.  The action just so happens as Maxwell and King are on their way to visit the immediate family, so they witness the event actually happen to some extent.  It seems as though Sean King is quite friendly with the family, and has been friends with the First Lady as well for quite some time.  So in addition to King and Maxwell being at the scene of the crime as it is being committed, FLOTUS also insists that the duo be assigned to the case.

We then meet Sam Quarry, the individual responsible for the kidnapping.  Baldacci spends a lot of time with Sam, and the more we know him, the more we become convinced that the man isn’t necessarily a deranged lunatic.  It seems like he has a very clear motive for his crime, yet the author doesn’t let us know exactly what it is until near the end of the story.  Instead, Baldacci masterfully peels back layer upon layer of Quarry’s motivation.  No, we never cheer for the guy, but we come to understand why he did what he did.  This, for me, was probably the most appealing part of the story.  I always looked forward when the story would come back to Sam, so I could add one more piece to a complex puzzle of understanding.

In the King and Maxwell books, David Baldacci dives a bit deeper into these two characters, and what exactly it is that makes them tick.  It seems as though, especially with Michelle Maxwell, there are a lot of skeletons in her past, and they’re so severe, that her subconscious has mostly blacked them out of her memory.  So we revisit her past from time to time.  In this book, her mother dies in an accident during the investigation, which causes her to go home to attend the funeral, etc. and there’s a LOT of time spent on digging up old ghosts.  It is quite the distraction from the main story, yet I never really felt as though the diversion was unnecessary nor too lengthy.  That might be a motivation to read these books in order, but if one doesn’t, it’s probably not that big of a deal.

I also enjoyed the somewhat of a cliffhanger ending quite well, and it makes me anxious to see how the next book plays out.

Doubleshot

Doubleshot  by Raymond Benson

I really loved the first three Raymond Benson authored James Bond books.  I guess, as the law of averages go, it was only a matter of time before I would consume one that would be a bit less than spectacular.  Alas, this was the case for Benson’s fourth Bond book.

Benson was always a major fan of the Bond books, and really only seemed to like the films if they were identical to the books.  So you can imagine his distaste for the movies once Roger Moore took over as the super spy, and also when John Gardner took over as the authorized author.  When Benson took over in the late 1990s, one of his main intentions was to bring the “old” Bond “back”.  I suppose that’s a good thing, and as mentioned, his first three books were very strong.

As far as the “old” Bond, it should be mentioned that Benson has created a major crime syndicate for many of his books called “The Union”.  Let’s just say that “The Union” very closely resembles Ian Fleming’s SPECTRE – right down to their clandestine meeting locations amongst the leaders in the middle of nowhere, to their mysterious intimidating “leader”  (he’s blind, but he seems to be able to “see” everything – especially when his lieutenants are trying to cheat the organization).  Benson introduced us to “The Union” in his previous Bond work “High Time to Kill”.  In that book, Bond obviously thwarted the baddies, so in this book, "The Union" is out for revenge.

Another feature of the “old” Bond, especially the literary Bond, is that he was more human.  He wasn’t quite as untouchable as the guy we see on the screen.  This has some advantages as well in some cases, but not so much in this book.  It seems as though Bond was pretty beat up at the end of his last adventure, so this book has the poor guy limping around between the pages looking worn, with black circles under his eyes, seeing hallucinations, taking handfuls of pills to help splitting headaches, and nearly passing out all of the time.   This isn’t how I like to picture 007 throughout an entire adventure.

Then, I found the plot to be rather stupid.  It seems as though “The Union” has managed to find (or construct) a replica (hence the title) of James Bond.  I don’t really like books that expect me to believe that a virtual clone can somehow be created of another human being.  So, anyway, another Bond is created that happens to look, act, and talk just like the original, and he’s doing some really “bad” things.  This, you see, is so the powers that be (such as M and her staff) become so confused and think that Bond has finally “turned”.  So they try to stop him, hence hindering the man’s plans.

Speaking of “doubles”, it seems as though Bond meets a lovely pair of sexified kittens in the book that are identical twins.  He meets the first one on a train somewhere and manages to score a date.  He then sees the twin, not realizing it’s a different person, and resumes talking about the future rendezvous.  Of course, being the clueless sister, she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, screams something like “Pervert!” and storms out.  No wonder the guy has persistent headaches.  Side note: If this happened in real life, wouldn’t the twin be able to figure out that the poor guy was actually talking to the sister?  I mean, I would assume a set of twins would get used to this sort of thing happening frequently.  Eventually, all works out well and the confusion is cleared up.  Still though, the entire time we spend with Bond and the twins reminds you of a bad Disney movie (except for the “sexified” part).

Without going into too much detail, the plot follows a pretty straight formula, and it doesn’t take much of a genius to figure out what’s going on, and stay one step ahead of the author, even though he thinks he’s fooling you.

Overall, this reminded me of a John Gardner Bond book, which really isn’t a compliment.  Gardner’s books usually fell somewhere in the “mediocre-o.k.” department, which is where this one belongs.  Benson’s first three Bond novels were much better, and I hope I’ll be able to say the same thing about the last two once I tackle them.