Stone Barrington Series – Stuart Woods

Note: I’m going to change it up a bit and review an entire series. I haven’t completed the whole series yet (there are 20 books thus far, and counting), but I think I can give a pretty solid review at this point.

Summary: Stone Barrington starts out as a beat cop, and this series follows the end of his police career and his retirement due to disability, followed by his next career as a lawyer and private investigator.

Setting: Late 1990’s through present day

Plot: Stone and his partner Dino are beat cops and Stone is shot in the knee, ending his career with the NYPD. Dino continues progressing in the NYPD, and makes his way up to Detective and beyond, while Stone passes the bar, having graduated from law school prior to becoming a cop. Stone is recruited to work with (but not at) a prestigious local firm, taking cases that their firm can’t be associated with for whatever reason. His practice ends up being quite successful, from 3 (thus far in the series) major sources:

1. One of his ex-girlfriends ends up marrying a famous actor, and Stone is asked to help when things go wrong for them or their friends.
2. The law firm that he’s associated with drops cases from extremely high profile clients into his lap, but these are the kinds of cases that the firm can’t be connected to – a CEO’s son is accused of date rape, etc.
3. Stone’s ex-partner (and current best friend) Dino is married to the daughter of a very successful Italian businessman, and Eduardo (Dino’s father-in-law) asks Stone for assistance with legal and investigative matters.

All of Stone’s clients are very well off and as a result, Stone makes quite a bit of money, and has gotten quite affluent over the course of the series, flying on private jets, staying in villas and the best hotels, and  driving dream cars.

Criticisms: Some of the language is quite profane, and some of the situations that Stone finds himself thrown into can seem a bit contrived, but as a whole, the books are fairly solid and tie the series together quite competently.

Wrap-up: It’s a pleasure to be able to follow a character’s career from the very beginning. There’s enough meat to the stories that none of the books seem to be “disposable”, but I can tell you from experience that if you read one of the stories from anywhere in the series, it’s quite capable of standing alone. As a result, you can take small bites from this story without having to read the entire series start to finish, or you can take a deep breath and dive right in at the beginning.

Woods has a couple of other series that he writes as well, and to be honest, I’m not certain if this series is his main series or not, but he’s quite prolific. The series seems to be quite consistent in writing style from the start to where I’m at in the series (in book 7), so I get the feeling that he’s been doing this for a while; this probably ain’t his first rodeo. Pretty solid series.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I give this series (and all the books I’ve read in it thus far) a solid B+.

Master of the Game – Sidney Sheldon

Summary: The story of Kate Blackwell, the head of an international conglomerate. This book traces her fortune from the very beginning until her 90th birthday party. The story of her fortune begins with her father’s journey from Scotland to the rugged deserts of South Africa in the 1880’s, and follows her life (and the lives of her family) through both World Wars and beyond - to current day.

 

Setting: Late 1800’s through 1983, international

 

Plot: Our story starts with Jamie McGregor, a Scottish teenager who follows the diamond rush to South Africa. He’s deceived, beaten, and left for dead in the desert by a business partner, and he reinvents himself with one goal in mind: revenge.

 

Jamie recovers and eventually builds up a thriving enterprise, tearing apart the life of his former partner and eventually driving the man to suicide. In the process though, he passes along his overdeveloped sense of vengeance to his own daughter. The rest of the book follows her life as she manipulates everyone around her for her own purposes.

 

Kate Blackwell is enormously successful by every conventional definition of the word, but as she looks back upon her life, one question remains: was it all worth it?

 

Her manipulation effects her entire family; I can’t give a lot of details without giving up parts of the plot, but her manipulation effects every single member of her family. Deception, insanity, murder – it’s all in here.

 

The story begins at Kate’s 90th birthday party as she’s reflecting back on her life, and follows the entire story of the family over the last hundred plus years.

 

Criticisms: Absolutely none.

 

Wrap-up: My meager summary and plot sections can’t even come close to doing this book justice. This is one of my favorite books, and I re-read it every couple of years just to remind myself what the ultimate pinnacle of writing should look like.

 

It’s a bit weighty at 500 pages but while you’re reading it, you’ll have a hard time sleeping wondering what’s going to happen next. An impulsive page-turner, and I can’t think (off the top of my head) of a book that I would recommend higher than this. It’s got universal appeal, and is perfectly written – an absolute must read.

 

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, an A+ isn’t a high enough grade for this book – so I’m going to (metaphorically) circle the A+ in red and put two bold lines under it. READ THIS BOOK!

Flight of the Old Dog – Dale Brown

Summary: The USSR has developed an anti-satellite laser system, which they insist is purely for defensive purposes. All hell breaks loose when they start using the laser for offensive purposes, and it falls to a highly classified military unit to take on the might of the Soviet Bear.

 

Setting: Cold War USA and USSR

 

Plot: Patrick McLanahan is an award winning bombardier on B-52 bombers. He’s approached by the general in charge of Dreamland, a classified weapons testing facility in the Nevada desert, to help develop advanced weapons systems for the aging bomber.

At the same time, the USSR is completing work on a laser system which they assert is in compliance with existing treaties, since it’s only planned for defensive uses. Their deception catches up with them when they start using the laser to shoot down reconnaissance planes and satellites designed to provide launch detection capabilities over the Pacific Ocean.

 

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff puts together a strike package to take out the laser facility but the bombers are intercepted at their holding point, nullifying their capabilities. At the same time, a sneak attack on the Dreamland facility forces the General to take to the air in the modified B-52, and they turn out to be the only asset which has a chance against the laser facility.

 

Criticisms: Fairly technical. Military fiction might not be for all readers.

 

Wrap-up: This is it – the beginning of the McLanahan series. There are 16 books (thus far), and they’re all great books, but this book starts the whole series out with a bang. If you like military fiction, chances are you’ve already read this series cover to cover, but if you haven’t picked one up, you can’t go wrong with this one. This book is a bit dated (from the late 80’s), but it’s a gripping start to McLanahan’s journey; you get to follow him through most of his career, and he’s a very real character.

 

Dale Brown is the real deal; he flew on medium and heavy bombers, and knows his technical stuff cold. This gives him a solid technical base to start the rest of the series. A wonderful series!

 

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I give this book a B+.

Amazonia – James Rollins

Summary: A member of a scientific expedition stumbles from the Amazon years after his entire team disappeared. The catch is he went in missing an arm, and came out with both arms. The government sends in a team to figure out what happened, and one of the members selected is the son of one of the original expedition members.

Setting: Present day U.S. and South America

Plot: Nathan Rand is selected to join a team exploring the Amazon, looking for traces of his father’s expedition which vanished four years earlier. During their quest, they’re pursued by a mercenary hit man and driven directly into the arms of an ancient civilization that might have access to native medicines that has mind boggling properties.

Between the mercenaries, the harsh Amazonian rain forest, and the indigenous natives who are pretty happy with their solitude, this is shaping up to be a pretty harrowing adventure.

Criticisms: Some of the pharmaceutical uses for the plants they find may very well be real, but come across as being fiction. Toward the end of the story there’s a section of the book that requires an active suspension of disbelief.

Wrap-up: Rollins has become one of my favorite authors, in part because of books like this one. A pretty solid story that’s fairly well written and mostly plausible.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I give this book a B+.

Digital Fortress - Dan Brown

Summary: The NSA’s multi-billion dollar code breaking computer encounters the first code it’s never been able to break. The head of the Crypto division calls in his best troubleshooter to help him figure out what’s going on, while simultaneously sending her boyfriend over to Europe to chase down the personal effects of the code’s designer. It’s a race against time when the code transforms and starts breaking down the machine’s defenses, threatening to open the country’s most secret databases to the entire world.

Setting: Present day U.S. and Europe

Plot: In this case, the summary pretty much says it all.

Criticisms: Can get a bit geeky at times, but not a bad read.

Wrap-up: Dan Brown is pretty good at his craft, and this one’s no exception. He’s not the greatest dialog writer around, but there are some decent action sequences. Not a ‘must read’, but a fun book if you’re looking for something to keep your mind busy.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I give this book a solid B.

Tripwire – Lee Child

Summary: A Reacher novel. If you need more of a summary than that, you're not familiar with him, and you need to be. Pick up a Reacher novel, then come back to this review.

Setting: Present day U.S.

Plot: Jack Reacher is contacted by a private investigator while working as a laborer in Key West. After the PI makes contact with him, he’s mysteriously killed (the PI, not Reacher). Who hired the PI? Reacher takes it upon himself to figure that out, as well as trying to figure out who took him out, and why they did it.

Turns out that Garber (Reacher’s old boss) was investigating a soldier who was MIA in Viet Nam and he evidently pissed off the wrong people. Reacher’s left to pick up the pieces, which he does in his standard spectacular fashion.

Criticisms: No technical criticisms.

Wrap-up: Reacher is a wonderful character, but to be honest, I need a break from him for a while. He’s a bad ass, and everything typically works out for him. That’s a bit tiring after a while. I think a bit of separation may bring back some of the enjoyment for me.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I give this book an A-.

The Templar Salvation – Raymond Khoury

Summary: Another Templar conspiracy novel.

Setting: Present day and Medieval Europe and Middle East

Plot: At an archaeological dig in Turkey, clues are found to a Templar treasure. FBI Agent Reilly is involved when his ex-girlfriend is kidnapped by a terrorist who is following the clues to the lost treasure, which could topple the Catholic Church.

Criticisms: A couple of plot holes, a character or two who completely disappear. A bit jumpy in some of the transitions to flashbacks.

Wrap-up: Khoury is an author who’s trying to cash in on the popularity of Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code. His transitions are a bit rough, and this series can be a bit plodding at times, but does a halfway competent job of keeping the books moving.

Having said that, I keep reading this series. Maybe I’m a just glutton for punishment.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I give this book a C+.

Phoenix Rising – John J. Nance

Summary: A newly revived Pan Am is in trouble. Accidents are plaguing their planes, they’re being turned in to the FAA for bogus violations, and their financial security is anything but stable. From all indications, someone is manipulating their stock valuation, and the lenders are calling in all the chips. Will the new CFO be able to save this fledgling airline?
 
Setting: US and Great Britain, late 1980’s

Plot: It’s not very often (in the books that I read, anyway) that the plot revolves around financing a company.

According to the narrative, Pan Am went out of business and the company has recently been brought back to life, due to the efforts of Elizabeth Sterling, a rising star on Wall Street. When the CFO of the fledgling airline makes some bad decisions (undoing some of the deals Elizabeth put together), management in the company smells trouble coming and entices Elizabeth to sign on as their new CFO.

Now Elizabeth has to restructure all of the deals all over again, but now someone’s been talking to all the lenders and convincing them not to loan to Pan Am. Other things start going wrong as well; maintenance problems with the planes, missing pilot certification records, intruders discovered in their maintenance facilities. It looks like someone is trying to put Pan Am back out of business.

Can Elizabeth find someone who’s willing to lend the necessary money to the new company?
 
Criticisms: Some of the financial material was over my head, but there’s enough action to pull you through the rest of the book.
 
Wrap-up: It might sound pretty boring, but it’s actually a pretty good book. Nance is very knowledgeable about the airline business, and he’s not too bad at the action sequences either. Worth a look.
 
Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I give this book a solid B.

I’ve been lagging.

Sorry, everyone (all 3 of you). I’ve been reading, but I’ve been too lazy to put together my reviews. I’ll post them over the next few days, but I skipped reviewing a couple of light-weight books in favor of a couple of meatier ones.

Expect 4 or 5 more reviews in the next few days, but the books (and their reviews) will be a bit lighter.

If you enjoy my reviews, feel free to comment on my reviews and let me know! I don’t know who’s actually reading this.

The Gold Coast – Nelson Demille

Summary: A WASP lawyer lives with his wife on the Gold Coast of Long Island, and his life has gotten to the point where it obviously needs some excitement. I don’t think a mafia boss moving in next door is just what the doctor ordered though. This may sound vaguely like a sitcom plot from the ‘80’s, but it’s really not.

 

Setting: Long Island, 1980’s

 

Plot: John Sutter lives an existence that’s a bit more complicated than you’d expect from the outside. From the outside, he’s a successful tax lawyer with a beautiful wife who lives in a mansion. Inside though, it’s a bit more complicated. He’s getting a bit bored with his life. His marriage blends two of the oldest (and therefore, most prestigious) families on the Gold Coast. The money (and the roof over his head) belong to his wife, because of the draconian pre-nuptial he signed. His salary, while comfortable, places him among the lowest earners in their circle of friends and acquaintances, while his last name and family history place him among the highest, in terms of status. His wife (based on the same family factors) is quite a bit lower on the social register, while she’s much wealthier. All of this is explained quite well, within the terms of the story.

 

Enter the antagonist. Frank Bellarosa  is the largest remaining head of the different organizations in the mafia, and he’s bought the estate next door to the Sutters.

 

In the beginning, John fights off Bellarosa’s efforts to reach out and start a friendship. In time (over the course of the book) John needs to call on Bellarosa for a favor. Italians love their favors, don’t they? Now, John owes Frank. Turns out, Frank may have purposefully caused the situation that forced John into needing a favor from Frank to start out with.

 

Just that last sentence might have given you an idea of how twisted this book can get, but wait, there’s more! Now, let’s add Susan Stanhope Sutter (John’s wife) into the mix, and she gets some sort of relationship going with Frank (we’re never point blank told whether it was a sexual relationship or not), and that complicates John’s life even more, making him reevaluate his marriage in addition to his career and the direction his life has taken up to this point.

 

Now, Frank is indicted for a murder that he (allegedly) did not commit, and he calls a favor in from John to defend him in the eventual court case. John’s a tax lawyer, but he would bring “blue blood” to the proceedings, along with being a member of one of the oldest families in America.

 

Criticisms: Parts can get a bit gruesome. There’s quite a few ethnic slurs thrown around. Stereotypes abound.

 

Wrap-up: I don’t know how Demille does it, but all his books are impeccably researched, and he knows what he’s talking about. He gives good information about the first families to crawl off the Mayflower, the social structure and geography of one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the United States, the mafia, law (including tax law), Italian culture – and that’s just this one book!

 

This book boils down, though, to one man’s journey from a happy normal life, to a state of mind where he sinks his own $300,000 boat to keep it out of the hands of the IRS (a felony, by the way), takes tours of mob areas of New York City with the head of a mafia family, and takes on the U.S. Attorney at a very personal level. It comes across as a decent into madness kind of journey, but presented in context, his actions (no matter how outrageous they are) are mostly within the boundaries of what we would consider “normal behavior”.

 

That’s one of the things that make this book such a joy to read, John comes across as a normal guy, and when he encounters situations which don’t meet his definition of “normal”, his behavior (while at times a bit aberrant) is the exact thing we would all like to do in his situation.

 

Overall, it makes you think, and makes you feel for John (and for Frank as well), as they’re pushed outside their comfort zones and the rains of reality wash off the patina to show their true colors.

 

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I give this book a solid A.

Gates of Fire – Steven Pressfield

Summary: The fictionalized historical account of one of two Spartans who survived the battle at Thermopylae, previously fictionalized in the movie “300”.

 

Setting: Ancient Greece.

 

Plot: I put the plot back in for this review. It’s worth it!

 

King Xerxes from Persia is taking over the world, and King Leonidas of the Spartans refuses to allow Xerxes’ forces to march in unopposed. He selects 300 warriors (and their squires) and leads them and their allies to make a stand at a natural choke point in northern Greece. Of those 300 warriors and their associated support personnel, there are 2 survivors. The narrator is one of them, commissioned by King Xerxes to tell the story of the Spartans.

 

The narrator tells the story from the point of view of one of the squires; essentially a helper to a knight and a punching bag for that knight as he goes through training. The story covers the squire’s journey from a sacked and abandoned village in northern Greece all the way to Sparta in southern Greece, and his assignment to different Spartan knights.

 

While the stories in the narration are quite entertaining (humorous, compelling, poignant and sometimes quite ghastly), the concepts that Pressfield presents are quite hard hitting, and force quite a bit of self-examination. The concepts of valor, honor, and duty are explored in great depth, and attempting to compare any values that you (the reader) hold dear against the values that the Spartan warriors (and their wives) lived by on a daily basis leaves you with a haunting feeling of inadequacy.

 

A bit of an example: The whole city knows that Leonidas will be calling up 300 knights to go face Xerxes. Only knights who have male descendants will be chosen – effectively, Leonidas is acknowledging that this is a suicide mission. The wife of one of the main characters conspires to save her nephew by claiming him as her own son, knowing full well that her husband (who’s fathered only daughters) will now be eligible to be called up. She knows that her husband’s sense of honor will be shattered if he’s not allowed to participate in the defense of their homeland. The king pulls her aside afterward and explains his reasoning for choosing only certain knights (including her husband) to participate:

 

“When the battle is over, when the Three Hundred have gone down to death, then will Greece look to the Spartans, to see how they bear it.

 

But who, lady, will the Spartans look to? To you. To you and the other wives and mothers, sisters and daughter of the fallen.

 

If they behold your hearts riven and broken with grief, they, too, will break. And Greece will break with them. But if you bear up, dry-eyed, not alone enduring your loss but seizing it with contempt for its agony and embracing if as the honor that it is in truth, then Sparta will stand. And all of Hellas will stand behind her.

 

Why have I nominated you, lady, to bear up beneath this most terrible of trials, you and your sisters of the Three Hundred? Because you can.”

There’s a bit more of an explanation, she cries a bit, then declares:

“Those were the last tears of mine, my lord, that the sun will ever see.”

There are so many parts of this book that gave me the chills; it’s very rare to read such a strong story of valor, honor, and duty. Current era stories about the military (and some civilian stories too) highlight these same concepts, but for the most part, the protagonists in the current stories succeed against insurmountable odds, or know heading into a situation that there’s a chance that they won’t survive.

 

These soldiers knew for a fact that they would not be returning from the Hot Gates. Theirs was a suicide mission. Their goal in facing down Xerxes in this particular spot was twofold: to hurt him enough in this one battle that he would think twice about taking on all of Greece’s military might, and to set an example for the rest of Greece in the lengths that they should all be willing to go to to preserve their country and their way of life.

 

Contrary to the popular image, there were not only 300 men standing up to the Persian invasion. There were 300 Spartan knights, but some allies joined with them in this battle; true historical accounts differ, but there were between 7,000 and 10,000 defenders. Historical accounts differ as well on the number of troops the Persian king brought; anywhere from 250,000 to 2,000,000 troops are acceptable numbers within the context of the true story. There is also no hard evidence of how many casualties were suffered by the Persian troops. I have seen figures quoting as many as 50,000 casualties of this one battle on the Persian side alone.

 

Nearly universal though, are the number of Spartan deaths. Leonidas sent all of the remaining allies away at the end, and only the remaining Spartans of the original 300 (along with their remaining squires) and one ally (numbering around 200 troops) remained at the end. Historically, there may have been a handful of survivors from the final clash, but it’s universally agreed that none of the Spartan knights survived.

 

Criticisms: Quite gory at times.

 

Wrap-up: This is a very hard book to read. The language can be quite antiquated at times, but it really gives you a good feel for the time period. Some of the moral concepts brought up force what can be some painful introspection. Extremely gory at times. A very good book, but definitely not for everyone. If you can watch 300 without flinching at the amount of gore, and the time period interests you, I would highly recommend this book.

 

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I give this book an A.

Up Country – Nelson Demille

Summary: Evidence of a 30 year old murder has recently come to light. There are a few catches, though: There was only one witness to that crime, and that witness may have died in the intervening years. The murder happened in the aftermath of a significant battle in Vietnam. The witness was a combatant for North Vietnam. How do you find the witness, if he lived through the rest of the war? How do you pick the investigator to assign? 

Paul Brenner, recovering from the aftermath of “The General’s Daughter” ; in truth he retired after that debacle. He’s called back to active duty and coerced to go back to Vietnam (for a third time), only this time during peacetime. Why can’t diplomatic requests be put through to talk with the witness? Is his government lying to him? What’s so important about the dead man, or the murderer?

Is there any way that Paul can make it back from Vietnam a third time, especially with the information he discovers while investigating this murder?

Setting: Vietnam, 1990’s – flashbacks to 1968 and 1972

Plot: Paul Brenner (last seen in “The General’s Daughter”) is contacted by his old boss and asked to take one last assignment. Next thing he knows, he’s on a plane to Nam, for the third time in his career. He’s got contacts he’s supposed to meet up with, who will give him information and assistance, as required. Before he even leaves the airport though, he catches the eye of Colonel Mang, a fairly powerful member of the Vietnam National Police Force, and in the course of the story, brazenly pisses Mang off and starts getting in trouble before his assignment even truly begins.

Once free, he has to find his way from the very bottom of the country to the very top, avoiding detection and questioning (by Mang’s men) the whole way. He’s “aided” in his journey by his first contact, an ex-pat who speaks Vietnamese, and a few additional people he meets along the way. What happens when he finds the witness? Will the witness even be alive? Based on the information the witness has, will Paul be able to tell what’s really going on?

Criticisms: This was a hard book for me to read, as I have a great deal of empathy for Vietnam vets. This book gives a glimpse into some of the experiences of a Army infantryman, surviving jungle warfare any way he can. The book can feel a bit ragged, but Demille was an established writer when this book came out, and I believe that the narrative style used in this book was chosen on purpose. Some readers might find the emotions that this book dredges up to be a bit strong. My next read will be much lighter, possibly a comic book, with pretty pitchures.

Wrap-up: Nelson Demille is one of my favorite writers. He’s a Vietnam Veteran, and this is one of only a couple of his books that touches on his experiences in the war. I would give this book an A++++++++, if such a grade existed in my arbitrary scale. I did, however, mark the final grade down a bit for subject matter. His work in technically perfect, no runs, no hits, no errors. I have read this book at least 10 times, and this last time through, I caught one single outright mistake. One. In this entire book. He should have caught it, his editors should have caught it, his proofers should have caught it, I’ve never caught a single bald-faced, point-blank mistake by Demille before, in any book, in any form or any fashion. That’s how good he is. As far as the attributes of the book itself? This is a book about a tortured soul, and his journey to peace and redemption. It’s set in a war zone; if you’re staunchly anti-war, this book will reinforce your beliefs, based on the accounts of some of the atrocities committed by both sides. If you support the troops no matter what, this book will make you weep for the pain that the characters go through almost reliving these times with them. I cannot recommend a book any higher than this one, if you can stomach a true fiction war novel.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I give this book a solid A.  I’ll save the elusive A+ for a book with more universal appeal.

The Cat Who Walks Through Walls – Robert Heinlein

Summary: Colonel (Senator?) Richard Ames Campbell is being recruited to save the world. A stranger is assassinated at his dinner table, he and his girlfriend get booted out of their apartments, and they’re chased off the habitat in the company of a man who was supposed to kill them both. Now he’s being recruited for a mission (across multiple timelines and dimensions) to save all existence.

Setting: Distant future, across multiple dimensions and timelines (Heinlein’s “World as Myth”).

Plot: Richard Campbell is an ex military commander who currently writes salacious novels. He’s out to dinner with his girlfriend when a man approaches their table and tries to enlist Campbell in a plot to murder a prominent citizen of their habitat. Before the unwanted visitor can get the particulars across, he’s mysteriously shot from afar. In the course of investigating the murder (and the requested “hit”) Campbell and his girlfriend are evicted from their apartments, and kicked out of the habitat.

His girlfriend turns out to be an operative with an organization whose grasp surpasses the boundaries of time and space; they jump around in different time lines to try and steer the present into more beneficial outcomes. Richard’s hesitant to join the organization, but his participation is vital (according to the group’s research) in saving a certain computer system.

Criticisms: I don’t have any major criticisms of this book.  

Wrap-up: As far as Sci-Fi is concerned, if you were to ask anyone (who’s familiar with Sci-Fi) who the masters of the genre are,  Heinlein would be in the top 3 of every respondent, along with Clark and Asimov.

If you’re already a Heinlein fan, this is a little gem which ties together with most of the other “World as Myth” books. If you know who Lazarus Long is, you’ll have a small step up on other readers. If you’re not a Heinlein fan but have been eager to try a new author (or genre), this would be a good choice, as it’s not dependent on the other novels but can be read as a good stand-alone book.

Heinlein exhibited his famous sense of humor (and solid grasp of the absurdities of the current political situation when he wrote the book) perfectly with this book, and it would be a good primer for a burgeoning Sci-Fi (or Heinlein) fan.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I would give this book an A-.

The Wheel of Darkness - Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Summary: Aloysius Pendergast is back. If you haven’t read any of the Pendergast novels, you’re missing out. Stop reading this review, and  go pick up one of the earlier novels, I would suggest Cabinet of Curiosities. Anyway, Pendergast is a special agent with the FBI, who investigates strange crimes. I’m not certain that he really takes any direction from the FBI at this point, he just uses his badge to open doors that would be closed to the general public. He’s chasing down an ancient Tibetan artifact which has been stolen from a monastery deep in the mountains on the border of China and Tibet. This monks are convinced that the artifact is linked with the end of the world, and it must be brought back to its home.

Setting: Current day Tibet, China, London, and an intercontinental ocean liner.

Plot: Pendergast is studying Tibetan meditation at a monastery in Tibet when he’s asked by the monks to chase down a box that’s been stolen. They have the identity of the thief, just need Pendergast to chase him down. Pendergast chases the thief and the box across Asia and Europe, finally catching up with the box on an intercontinental ocean liner where the artifact starts driving anyone who gazes upon it insane.

Pendergast’s superior intellect is his only usable weapon against the artifact, but will it be enough? 

Criticisms: None whatsoever. If you haven’t read any other books in this series, you may want to read the earlier ones first, as the series reads in order, and there are some significant spoilers in this book regarding the earlier books.

Wrap-up: Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child hit the ball out of the park on this one. They’d been writing this series for long enough (at the time of this book) that the characters are still fresh, and this is one of the best in the series. If you like mysteries, and don’t mind a bit of supernatural content thrown in, there’s not a series that I’d recommend more than this one.

Pendergast is superbly written, and has a lot of idiosyncratic traits that endear his character to the reader. His roots are in New Orleans, and he’s portrayed as a syrup voiced Southern gentleman, almost a renaissance man; he’s a master of a wide assortment of disciplines, from art and music to unarmed (or armed) combat. One of the best written characters I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. There are 11 books in the series (thus far), so once you get to know Pendergast, you can have a nice long trip with him, if you wish.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I would give this book an A.

Virtual Mode – Piers Anthony

Summary: Colene is walking home from school, and discovers a strange man collapsed in a ditch. They learn how to communicate and Darius brings her a story of a land where magic reigns. She assumes that he’s crazy and when he’s able to travel back to his own dimension, she realizes that he was telling the truth the whole time. How can she get back together with him?

Setting: Starts in Oklahoma in the 1980’s, includes travel to other dimensions.

Plot:  Colene is a 14 year old high school student. She’s popular enough but she’s got some significant issues, among them that she’s suicidal, and her parents marriage is a sham. Her father is a philanderer, her mother is a practicing alcoholic. She meets Darius, a king from another dimension, when he’s beat up by hoods in her neighborhood. She nurses him back to health in secret and he tells her of his mission – to find an appropriate queen. We already know that Colene wouldn’t be appropriate for his purposes, but they fall in love anyway; at least he does. She think's he’s crazy, but accepts his story for something to grasp onto and believe in. He finds out that she’s suicidal, and that she wouldn’t meet the qualifications to be the queen (because of her negative attitude), so he decides to return to his home dimension (with her help) and try finding a queen another way. His leaving demonstrates to Coleen that he was telling the truth, and cements her feelings for him. Unfortunately, she’s separated from him by virtue of being dimensions away.

Darius returns to his home dimension, and finds a way that he and Colene can be together, so he sets up a method of joining their dimensions so that they can join back up. Colene is eager to get out, and grasps on the opportunity to reunite with Darius (now that she knows he’s not crazy), but first they have to actually find each other. Enter the telepathic horse, the old woman who can’t remember the past but can see the future, and the homicidal intergalactic emperor. 

Criticisms:  Piers Anthony is an accomplished enough writer that if you’re interested in sci-fi and fantasy in the first place, you won’t find any gaping holes in the plot. He’s one of the masters of the genre, and definitely knows his business.

Wrap-up:  This was a hard read, and forced me to reevaluate whether this belongs on my bookshelf in the first place. It’s not my favorite series by him, but it’s pretty well written. What made this so hard is that he’s such a good writer, and he deals with some uncomfortable issues. Colene is suicidal, and cuts her wrists to flirt with death. She’s been raped in the past, and this affects her psyche and her daily life. Darius falls in love with her (he’s in his 20’s and she’s 14), but for this book at least, they don’t consummate their relationship. This book attempts to deal with alcoholism and a father who’s unfaithful to his wife.

Are Colene’s psychological aspects realistic? I truly don’t know. I’ve never been a 14 year old girl, and I don’t know what it feels like to be in ones head. I guess what’s a little disturbing is that Piers Anthony apparently does and, from the outside at least, he appears to do the whole “teen angst” thing quite ably, 5+ years before it occurred to Kurt Cobain. That’s pretty impressive for a (at the time) 57 year old man, but it’s still a bit uncomfortable.

If you’re already a Piers Anthony fan, chances are you might have missed this series, and it’s worth a look. If you’re not a Piers Anthony fan but wanna give him a try, I would recommend starting on one of his one-shots first (I can make some recommendations if you need some), then trying out another of his series first. This one’s a bit heavy.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I would give this book a C+.

High Crimes – Joseph Finder

Summary: Claire’s a law professor at Harvard, and everything’s going right for her. She’s got a beautiful daughter from a previous marriage, tenure, and she’s married to the man of her dreams. Or is she? Following a break-in at their house, her husband is chased down by the government and the military for a horrendous war crime he’s accused of committing 13 years earlier. Claire takes the reins and leads her husband’s defense team, trying to keep him alive and out of military prison.

Setting: United States, 1993 and flashbacks to Central America, 1985

Plot: Claire is a tenured professor at Harvard, a rising celebrity due to her involvement with a highly publicized case, and is happily married to a wonderful man. Her life starts falling apart around her when her husband is accused of war crimes in an undeclared war in Central America, and chased down by the FBI. She pursues a vigorous legal defense for him, taking on the military justice system in a bid to get down to the truth, or at least to keep her husband out of prison. Are those goals mutually exclusive?

Criticisms: No significant criticisms. The book is written about a pretty graphic series of events during an undeclared war. Most of the graphic events covered are described from a more narrative style, rather than from a gritty, realistic perspective.

Wrap-up: Finder does a good job of dumbing down some of the more technical concepts (regarding armaments, etc.), and while his courtroom scenes aren’t quite as polished as Grisham, he’s quite effective at capturing the courtroom drama. Most of his books are written more about the corporate world and corporate espionage, so this was a nice change-up, and nicely demonstrates his versatility as a writer.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I would give this book a B.

The Other Side of Midnight - Sidney Sheldon

Summary: One word - Vengeance. With a capital V. An "In Your Face", over the top grandiose exposition of Vengeance, with a steaming side order of ruining someone's life over the course of a couple of decades.

Setting: Europe and the United States, between the 1930's and the late 1940's.

Plot: Standard Sidney Sheldon fare; an exceptionally written, internationally set, character based drama. Noelle gets jilted by a US pilot who's on temporary assignment to the RAF. She spends the next few years plotting how to get even with him, then delivers on her promise (with a truly surprising Sheldon twist). It's hard to classify Noelle as the antagonist or protagonist in this story; she's definitely a "bad" character (the story opens with her on trial for murder), but she's been forced into her circumstance by her (sometimes naive) dealings with other characters. I was rooting for her by halfway through the book, and trying to guess how she would deliver her vengeance to the aforementioned pilot. This book begins with the adventures of a handful of main characters through the turbulent time of France, England, the United States and Greece in the years and months leading up to the Second World War, and their story continues through the war, and a few years immediately following.

Criticisms: This book has only a few issues, mostly with what some of the characters are able to accomplish with limited resources. Some of the female characters are able to throw themselves on the mercy of handy benefactors who have obviously been inserted into the plot specifically for those purposes (if that makes any sense). There is some further development of those characters though, so he didn't completely forget about those characters once they'd accomplished what he'd originally needed them for. A few were obviously secondary creations though.

Wrap-up: Sidney Sheldon did a very good job with this book, one of his better ones. It was initially published in 1973, and while some of the terminology is quite dated, as a historical drama it performs within its internal time period fairly smoothly. The international settings are brilliant, and Sheldon demonstrates again how well his descriptions can be used to paint pictures that you can see and feel, almost more vibrantly than if you experienced them yourself. There are a few minor holes in the plot, but the stumbles are artfully concealed with reasonable explanations, given the time periods involved.

Grade: By my arbitrary scale, I would give this book a solid B+.