The Black Stiletto by Raymond Benson
I read this book for two reasons. The first was because it
was one of those “Amazon Bargain Bundles”; the second was because I’ve read the
author’s six James Bond novels and thought they were mostly excellent. Had I not been familiar with the author, I
never would have attempted to read this one.
After reading the first of the five in the bundle, I kind of wish I hadn’t. This book didn’t do much for me. Although I’m
including this review as part of the “bundle”, I want to emphasize I only read
the first one. I really have no interest in continuing.
This book seemed like it really did have the potential to
excel, and the first half or so really did keep my attention. As the story went on, I found it overall
silly, predictable, and rather lazy. By ‘lazy’,
I mean that if more care would have gone into the writing, it might have worked
for me. I almost felt like the author
was under contract to write 5 of these books quickly, so he hurried through
without really giving this story proper care.
A middle-aged man living in the present day has his mother
in a nursing home suffering from dementia. Her lawyer is obligated to turn over
sensitive documents to her only surviving child. To his amazement, he discovers his mother was
the famous (- cue dramatic music -) BLACK STILETTO! The Black Stiletto was a female
superhero/crime caper who roamed the streets of New York City in the
1950s. She kept a pretty meticulous
diary of her activities, so her son spends the majority of this book reading
mom’s memoir, so we get to relive her adventures as they happened.
I confess I never read comic books nor watch superhero
movies, so I’m really not sure how the world of such characters function. I was
under the impression that most of these crusaders either came from another
planet or were the result of some botched scientific experiment that gave them
superpowers. Judy Talbot (her REAL name)
doesn’t have any ‘amazing’ tendencies.
She DOES, however, have the ability to hear whispered conversations from
afar and immediately ‘know’ when someone is lying to her. So I guess you could say she has some extraordinary
capabilities. Kind of. Again, I wish Raymond Benson would have given
this more attention. It seems like a
quick, cheap way to make our heroine more powerful and quickly get out of tough
jams without much of a realistic explanation.
Notice I said “some” extraordinary capabilities. Judy actually
was raised in a very rough West Texas environment. After abuse from her family,
she runs away to New York City to begin her new life even though she’s barely a
teenager. But, when the author is lazy,
it’s easy for our protagonist to “fake” her age and quickly get a job as a
waitress, and then quickly take boxing lessons, karate lessons, knife-wielding
lessons etc. Anytime we’re witnessing
Judy doing anything, the author always gives us a detailed playlist of the
music going on in the background on a jukebox or something. I guess he wants his readers not to forget
that we’re actually in the 1950s instead of present day. Somehow, I think that if I were writing a
diary, I wouldn’t bother to include the name of every song by every artist that’s
playing somewhere in the background.
Well, next thing we know, Judy adopts a superhero alter-ego
and she’s taking down mafia bosses and uncovering Cuban spies that are trying
to infiltrate our government. (Cuba. Don’t want to, you know, forget it’s the
50s). We also get some stories that take place in the present day. Judy’s son
(his name is Martin) is going through a bit of midlife crisis with an ex-wife
and a daughter who “won’t listen to reason”. The whole thing is awfully
contrived. We also meet a paroled
villain in the present day who The Black Stiletto took down a half-century or
so ago, and now he’s out for revenge.
That subplot DID start out kind of interesting, but again…..
There were times when I thought this story would have made a
great teen-young reader book instead of serious adult fiction. The level of
writing (along with the laziness) seemed more geared towards an audience that
might not want to assimilate too many deep things. The problem with that is the
subject matter is rather inappropriate for younger readers; such as when and
how Judy was abused by her step-father that triggered her running away from
home. There’s also some scenes that are
borderline S&M kinky. Well, what do
you expect when the hero is a masked woman dressed in black who pirouettes from
building to building while wearing spiked high-heels and wielding a knife? So, no, I would definitely NOT recommend you
letting your 12-year old read this thing.
At the conclusion of the book, there’s still a lot of
unanswered questions that Martin has about his mysterious mother. I’m sure they all get answered in the next
four books. Sadly, I really have no desire to find out. After one book, I’m
pretty much done.
I know I sound awfully grouchy. The book really wasn’t THAT bad. I’ve read much worse. I guess it’s a nice semi-quick read if you
don’t like to invest too much time digesting massive thousand-page tomes. I also MUST reiterate that the author’s six
James Bond books were excellent. (I’ve reviewed all six on Amazon, and I gave
five out of the six stellar five-star reviews).
So if you feel somewhat similar to how I felt after finishing THIS book,
please don’t think “How in the heck can this guy handle James Bond???” He can.
And he did a brilliant job.
Not so much here.
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