Category: Fiction Page 302 of 348

Hardcover, 448 pg.
Minotaur Books, 2014
Read: December 25 – 26, 2014It’s difficult for me to get the proper perspective on this one. I’ve watched the series this novel is based on multiple times, I watched all of the FOX adaptation, Gracepoint, I’ve thought and talked about the events surrounding the death of Danny Latimer (or Solano) more than people should. Which makes me either the ideal reader for this, or the worst. I’m not sure. Honestly, when this book came out, I was intrigued, but not that compelled to give it a shot until I read that hints for the second series would be included.

I’ve got a few ideas what those hints might be, but really, there’s not much here that wasn’t on the screen (which is as it should be). Still, it was a good use of time, I thought.

The advantage of Kelly’s novel over the series is in the details, the little things she can point out that the viewer might miss, or that the camera couldn’t show. We see the Ellie’s blowup about Hardy’s ubiquitous lists building up. There’s breathing room for small, quiet moments like those early on between Rev. Coates and Danny’s grandmother. You can tell there’s a relationship between them in the show, but we get to see some of it here, which is nice.

Kelly nails — absolutely nails — the relationships between the characters, in all the nuances, all the humanity these characters were imbued with. The loves, the friendship, the banter, the . . . distrust, the antipathy, the suspicion . .. all of it.

The biggest things the novel has going for it is that we get a get a better sense of the effect this death has on the community. We’re told that it is in the show, but here we’re told, but we also see it in ways beyond Becca’s inn being too vacant.

Kelly does make a few tweaks — notably when things happen, honestly, the timeline makes a bit more sense to me — and is definitely clearer, we get a much better sense how long things go along. One change is that Chloe (the sister) isn’t in school when she takes off and goes to hang out with her boyfriend (it seemed to early for her to be in school, but a good way to demonstrate her trying to get back to normal life). Anyway, the changes she made were small — almost unnoticeable — and entirely forgivable (when they weren’t improvements).

Kelly gives almost no physical descriptions of anything or anyone. I wouldn’t know what Rev. Paul Coates looked like if I didn’t know what Arthur Darvill looked like. You get a tidbit or two about Hardy’s height, Tom Miller and Danny Latimer’s hair (and Joe Miller and Nige Carter’s lack of it), Becca Fisher’s looks. But on the whole, there’s practically no physical description of the characters. Which is fairly annoying — especially for those who read the book while skipping the series, I’d think.

At the end of the day, this is a gripping story about the first murder in a small town’s living memory and what happens to everyone it touches. There’s hope, there’s despair (lots of it), there’s love, there’s . . . eh, I said it before, I’ll just say it again: humanity.

Watch it, read it — do both. This is a heckuva story.

—–

3.5 Stars

Endsinger by Jay Kristoff

By HCNewton

On December 29, 2014

In Fiction, Steampunk, YA/MG/Children's Books

Endsinger

by Jay Kristoff

Hardcover, 432 pg.
Thomas Dunne Books, 2014
Read: Dec. 16 – 23, 2014

Let me show you what one little girl can do.

Of course, if you’ve read the first two novels in The Lotus War, you’ll know the list of what this one particular little girl can’t do is probably much shorter. The only question at this point is, can one little girl survive?

Kristoff has quite the wringer to put you through before you get the answer to that. For example, within the first thirty pages — thirty — Kristoff reveals something about a character I’d grown to have a certain affection for, and pitied after what happened to them in the previous book which makes me question everything I thought about them. And then he does something to that character I’m not sure I’ll forgive him for (will still read him, don’t get me wrong, I’ll just bear a grudge).

On the other hand, Endsinger is filled with so many fist-pumping moments, and fun sentences — like

Hiro laughed like a man who’d only read about it in books.

that you can keep pressing on — and actually enjoy the book. Another example of this:

Michi’s foot connected with the Inquisitor’s groin like a redlining goods train. It was the kind of kick that made one’s testicles throw up their hands and move to a monastery in the Hogosha mountains. It was the kind of kick that made orphans of a man’s grandchildren.

I mean, that’s something that Bruce Willis should be saying as he takes on Hans Gruber’s second-cousin or whatever.

I’m not going to describe much plot-wise here. It’d be too difficult to do it justice at this point — if you haven’t read the first two books anyway, there’s not a lot you’ll understand here without a lot of effort on my part. And if you’ve read the first two, you don’t need that to be an inducement to read the this one. It’d be easy in a book like Endsinger to just point every character at the final battle, throw in an obstacle or two along the way and let that be that. Heck, just coming up with an excuse to have Yoshi and Buruu travel around for 70-100 pages as the best buddy comedy pair to come along lately would’ve been a very satisfying way of spending time before the big battle. Instead, we get character development — a lot of it. We get mysteries explained. We get new characters, we learn new things about characters that we’ve known really well since book one (or thought we did, anyway). And they’re all thrown at a couple of really big battles, with some obstacles to overcome along the way.

The themes of the first two books continue to be explored here. The two that stuck out the most for me were: what makes a hero, what do they look like and what’s worth fighting for — honor, family, love, something else. Heroes aren’t what you think they are, don’t look like you think they should like — even (especially) to themselves. But everyone knows one when they see and/or hear one. As for what’s worth fighting for? That’s different for every one.

You don’t think people should know what happened here?”
“Oh, I think they should know, no doubt. I just don’t think they’ll care.”
“How could they not?”
“Because it will be different next time. It always is.”
“Different?” Akithito frowned at the cloudwalker captain.
“Different,” the Blackbird nodded. “Whatever they fight over. It’ll have a different name or a different shape — religion or territory or black or white. People will look back on us and say ‘we could never be that blind.’ People don’t learn from history. Not people who count, anyway.”

There’s a measure of cynicism, realism and idealism in Kristoff’s exploration of these (and other) themes. It’s tough, and probably ill-advised, to try to pin one of these viewpoints on Kristoff. But it seems to me that idealism’s voice is a bit louder than the rest.

Kristoff is great at keeping you on your toes. Things are bleak, but you start to think that hope is on the horizon, that one cavalry or another is coming — and coming soon. And then the hope is dashed. Or you start to think that all hope is gone and things are going to fall to ruin, and this is going to turn into a YA historical dystopian series, but then a new source of hope, a new rabbit gets pulled from a hat. He blindsides you time after time, from every direction.

Kristoff is great at his pacing, there are many moments he lets breathe, lets the readers and the characters observe everything going on, taking in all the sensory information and the thoughts of everyone. But he’s also capable of throwing in a sudden scene to grab the reader. The quick scenes bouncing around between the various characters in the heat of battle really work well to keep the tension high (though that can be a bit confusing unless you force yourself to slow down and read carefully — which is the last thing you want to do at that moment).

After awhile — about three-quarters through the book, after all the death, destruction, and (seemingly) climactic confrontations and battles getting you to that point, you simply can’t believe Kristoff can keep it going. How can the book last so many more pages? Is he going to give us a Peter Jackson’s Return of the King-style multi-epilogue? Probably not, it really seem to be Kristoff’s style. And then Kristoff shows you how he’s going to fill the rest of the book, and you pity all his characters, even those you’ve grown to despise, because that’s just not right.

In the end, Endsinger is a very satisfying conclusion to one of my favorite series in recent years. It’d have been easy for him to go for a “Everybody lives, Rose” kind of thing, where Hiro and the Lotus Guild are destroyed, Yukiko and Buruu are universally hailed as heroes, the Kage take over, and happily ever after. But he doesn’t give us that. Instead, we get the kind of conclusion promised in the first two books: it was emotionally satisfying (and induced a wide range of emotions, and may have involved a Kleenex or two on my part), it gave characters real conclusions to their arcs (not all happy endings), it tied up what needed to be tied up and it pointed towards the future. I’m going to miss this world and most of these characters. But I’m glad Kristoff didn’t try to milk this longer — it’s great as it is.

—–

5 Stars

Hostile Witness by William Lashner

By HCNewton

On December 10, 2014

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Hostile Witness

by William Lashner

Hardcover, 501 pages
Published May 1st 1995 by ReganBooks
Read: December 2 – 6, 2014So this summer, on the recommendation of a reader, I read Marked Man, the sixth book about Victor Carl, the unfortunately named Philadelphia lawyer. I wasn’t wowed by it, but I enjoyed it enough that I wanted to go back to the beginning and try at least one more in the series.

I’m not convinced that was such a great idea. It wasn’t until the last 100 pages that I cared about anything going on in this book — I even started to really like it, actually. But 80% of the way through a book is far too late for that.

My main problem with the book is the characterization of Victor Carl. He’s still at the beginning of his career, but not so fresh that he should be so naïve. For most of the novel, like an obedient show dog, Carl’s led around by his greed, ambition, and that part of anatomy not known for its thinking skills. It’s hard to watch someone who should be a bit more cynical to act this way. If he was truly wet behind the ears, if he was really that young, if he was Forrest Gump — it might be different. But a kid who worked his way up from his beginnings through law school and a few years of practice should know better. Even as fresh to the profession as he is, Victor comes across as too world weary to get taken in so easily.

The book is easily one hundred pages longer than it needed to be — if not more — but most of the extra time is justifiable, and I only noticed it because I wasn’t really enjoying things.

The sense of place is strong. I know next to nothing about Philly. Lashner’s writing at least makes me feel I understand it a bit. The way that (early) Parker, Lehane and Tapply helped me think I understand Boston. Or a few dozen authors make me think I understand parts of New York City.

Obviously, over the course of a long series things are going to change in a character — either because the author changes his mind/forgets something (Inspector Cramer chewing rather than smoking cigars, Spenser’s time in the prosecutor’s office changing counties) or there’s some sort of character growth. So it’s not surprising that Victor in book 1 would be different in book 6. I don’t remember his eyes watering whenever he’s in a confrontation from Marked Man, but it’s all over the place here. Did he grow out of it? Did Lashner just drop it? Is my memory bad? (I’m leaning towards “no” based on how often he’s mentioning it here, he’d have to mention it a lot then).

No matter what, I can’t begrudge the time spent with this book because it introduced me to Morris Kapustin — the elderly, Orthodox Jewish P.I. He’s funny, he’s easy to underestimate and overlook. Really funny to read. I’d read a Kapustin series in a heartbeat — I’d probably collect first editions of them. Sadly, something tells me that character won’t be around long.

This was good enough to justify the effort, but not so good that I could really recommend. I’m mildly curious about the new phase of Victor’s career, and how that gets him to Marked Man, but not overly so. I might be back for #2 if I hit a lull next year, but I’m not going to exert a lot of effort to pick it up.

—–

2 1/2 Stars

The Job by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg

By HCNewton

On December 3, 2014

In A-F, Authors, Fiction, Fox and O'Hare, Janet Evanovich, Lee Goldberg, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

The Job

by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg
Series: Fox and O’Hare, #3

Hardcover, 304 pg.
Bantam, 2014
Read: November 29 – December 1, 2014How is this only the third in the series? It’s a testament to the professionalism and craft of Evanovich and Goldberg that this feels like a series that’s been around for at least a half-dozen books, a well-oiled machine.

The hook to this particular case — someone posing as Nick Fox pulling off some major heists — was pretty fun, and a great excuse for Kate to go jet-setting around the world. That lasted just long enough to set up the major target for this novel: one of the biggest, baddest, most mysterious Drug Lords in the world. Thankfully, he has a pretty major Achilles’ heel that Nick and Kate were able to take advantage of. In just about any other series, I’d cry “foul” about someone like Lester Menendez falling for this implausible con. But it totally worked in this world — and would probably have worked if Nate Ford and the crew had tried it, too. Slick talking, fast work and a hint of danger (more from the psychotic bodyguard Reyna Socorro and her trusty AK-47 than from her boss) — and bam. The bad guy gets defrauded and sent away for a long time.

The major difference between this one and the previous two installments is that the rest of the team doesn’t have as major a role to play — don’t get me wrong, the usual players and some new faces are there and important. We just don’t spend as much time with them — it’s more heavily geared to being the Nick and Kate Show. They’re even restrained in their use of Jake O’Hare. I don’t have anything against the rest of the team, and really enjoy some of them — but I’m glad that they were put in a secondary position this time. As long as they get featured more prominently on a regular basis, I think focusing on the title pair makes sense.

The only suspense really is how far the “Will They/Won’t They” go (and so far, that hasn’t reached the point of being annoying). We all know that Fox and O’Hare will get their target, we may not be sure how — we won’t know how much fun there’ll be along the way, how much private property will be destroyed, and how many exotic (or domestic) locales will be visited along the way. And it’s fine that this isn’t a suspense-filled series. It’s a lot of fun. That’s what it promises, and that’s what it delivers — as long as we don’t look for more than banter, impossible cons and slick writing, we won’t be disappointed.

Not that the first two were slogs by any stretch of the imagination, but I raced through this — with a little more sleep, I’d have tackled this in one sitting, but I had to leave the last 50 pages for another day. The writing, the plot, the banter was just so smooth it was almost impossible to stop once I got started. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and already am looking forward to the next.

—–

4 Stars

The Reluctant Warrior by Ty Patterson

By HCNewton

On November 26, 2014

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

The Reluctant Warrior

by Ty Patterson

Kindle Edition, 313 pg.
Amazon Digital Services, 2014
Read: November 18 – 19, 2014A few months ago, I read the first volume in this trilogy and enjoyed it, while noting some real problems. The same thing could be said about this follow-up — the problems are still there, but they’re not as bad. Patterson’s improved — he’s better at what he was good at, and his bad isn’t quite as bad.

The character I liked most from The Warrior, Broker, moves to Center Stage for this one, hired by the FBI agent who made such a mess of things last time, Isakson. He’s been trying to take down an increasingly powerful criminal organization in New York, a gang called the 5Clubs. The problem is, there seems to be a mole in the FBI or the NYPD, and he can’t find it. Enter Broker and his impossibly good sources, software and assorted mercenaries — most notably, the Warriors.

Broker tries to improve upon the FBI’s own investigation, but it doesn’t work to well. So, he picks another strategy. He’s going to ask the 5Clubs, who the mole is. Which includes the bonus feature of taking out a good deal of their operations along the way to give them a reason to actually answer.

Mayhem, destruction, and vigilante justice ensues in a quite entertaining fashion.

There are some weaknesses, which I really don’t want to focus on — but these take me out of the action, take me out of the scene when I ran into them. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t talk about them. But when it stops me, I have to mention it.

1. There were far too many “Britishisms.” Mechanics from Ohio don’t talk to their kids about going on holidays, or use a “mobile.” Once the action got going in Part 2, it stopped being as much of an issue — things were moving fast enough that they were easier to ignore.

2. Similarly, Patterson could use a synonym or two for “gang” and “hood.” The repeated use of these two got to the point where they were grating.

3. When it comes to the inter-personal dialogue, Patterson’s improved, but not enough. You can tell when he’s going for banter between the team members, but it’s just a little wooden.

The problems detract and distract, but don’t ultimately ruin the experience of The Reluctant Warrior. It’s a solid action story and a good improvement over the previous installment, and I’m curious to see where Patterson takes it next.
—
Note: I was graciously provided a copy of this book by the author in exchange for a review. Hope he doesn’t regret that.

—–

3 Stars

In Medias Res: Us by David Nicholls

By HCNewton

On November 17, 2014

In Currently Reading, Fiction, General Fiction/Literature, In Medias Res

Us

by David Nicholls Typically, I use an “In Media Res” post to check in on a book I’m really excited about, usually about the halfway point. But, thanks to some poor time management on my part, I’ll check in here, as I had to take this back to the library today. I’m on page 120, just a couple pages into Part 2.

In a thumbnail, this is Rowell’s Landline from the male perspective, but without the magic phone. Similarly to Landline, we examine the beginning of the relationship from the protagonist’s present POV, as well as how things progress from the time that his wife tells him she thinks their marriage might be done. In a few months, their child will be leaving home, so she considers their work done — and maybe they will be, too.

This comes out of nowhere (as far as he’s concerned), and strikes poor Douglas like a load of bricks. He latches on to the probability she’s expressed rather than the certainty. He still has a chance, he just needs to make certain changes. He has no idea what those are, but he’s going to try to make them.

At this point, I can see why 1980’s Douglas would be attracted to 1980’s Connie, and maybe why he’d fall for her. I’m not convinced present-day Connie is worth that much effort (but I’m not married to her, so it’s hard for me to say). As for their work as a couple? On behalf of the people of Earth — you’ve done a lousy job. Albie is a questionable human being and a lousy ingrate of a son.

This is well-told — with heart, with wit (frequently a bumbling wit, but that’s Douglas’ charm). As much as I loved Nicholl’s One Day, I couldn’t finish Starter for Ten, so I was a little worried about dipping my toe into this one. But, I have every intention of plowing through this one, as soon as I climb back on top of the library wait list.

When I do, I’m sure I’ll learn to like present-day Connie a bit more, and find out what happened between 1980’s Douglas and present-day Douglas to turn him into someone Connie’s not sure she wants to stick with. I fully expect it to be understandable and may even result in my not liking Douglas too much for a bit. Will he figure out what needs to change and do so? Maybe. I’m not sure Nicholls is going for a happy ending. Who knows? I might even find a redeeming quality in Albie. That will come as a surprise, but I’m open to the possibility.

Good start — I can imagine this book getting 5-stars from me. Also can imagine it getting 3. Who knows?

Pickles and Ponies: A Fairy-Tale by Laura May

By HCNewton

On November 14, 2014

In Fiction

Pickles and Ponies: A Fairy-Tale

by Laura May

Kindle Edition, 263 pg.
Kindle Direct Publishing, 2014
Read: November 1 – 3, 2014

Everybody knows that good princesses are always pretty, just like wicked step-mothers are always ugly and covered in warts: and Melodia was no exception to this rule. By this time she was nearly nineteen, and she was tall and healthy, with rather a wistful look to her. You probably want to know her hair colour as well, because you’ve heard how that impacts upon personality. Scientists all over Raduga (with the word ‘scientist’ being used somewhat loosely) have conducted several studies into the effects of hair colour. They’ve found that while it seems to matter very little for the princes of the realm, for princesses it’s quite the opposite. Blonde hair indicates beauty and fragility, while brunettes are supposedly street-smart and intelligent. Of course, these studies were all funded by the Prince of Hairdressers, who was allegedly running a hair dye cartel…

If Douglas Adams were to write a fairy-tale style story for a YA audience, it’d sound a lot like this. Which is at once the strength and the weakness of the book. Once you start with this voice, you’re stuck with it — it’s a commitment you have to follow through with. May does a fine job of that. But, unlike Adams, she sometimes lets her voice, her storytelling style, get in the way of the story.

But, while occasionally distracting and annoying, it’s not fatal. And if you read this in smaller chunks — I read it in two sittings — you might not even notice (at least not as much as I did).

This is a cute YA take on fairy tales, a tale of magic, friendship, and a search for true love in a land where everyone is a prince or a princess (if they’re not a King or a Queen). There’s really not much else to say. She’s not giving us fractured Snow White or Cinderella, etc. May’s working from a blank canvas — what’s happening in the castle to the right of Prince Charming’s.

Again, like Adams, I’m not entirely convinced that May’s world is really that coherent — but it doesn’t matter, the world she’s put this in is just a place for her to tell jokes and have silly things happen. Like this:

By the time nine months on the island had passed, Melodia was bored out of her wits and sorely lacking in company. She tried talking to rocks, but they were stoney in their silence. She tried talking to the moss, but it just wasn’t a fun guy. The trees asked her to leaf them alone, and eventually the princess was reduced to talking to her own reflection in the lake.

I laughed, I chuckled, I groaned, I was charmed — and I was entertained. What more could you want?

—–

The author was kind enough to provide me a copy of this book, providing me relief from the murder and mayhem I’ve found myself reading this year.

—–

3 Stars

The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss

By HCNewton

On November 13, 2014

In Authors, Fantasy, Fiction, P-U, Patrick Rothfuss

The Slow Regard of Silent Things

by Patrick Rothfuss

Hardcover, 159 pg.
DAW Books, 2014
Read: October 30 – 31, 2014You know what? I’ll be honest here. It’s been so long since I’ve read The Wise Man’s Fear that I’ve forgotten everyone’s name except Kvothe and Bast (although I frequently think Bash). So when I heard that this little book would be focusing on Auri, I thought Denna instead. A couple pages in I knew I was wrong, so I took a quick trip to http://kingkiller.wikia.com/ and got my names straight. Finally having the right character associated with the name, I was probably more excited than ever about this book, more time with the mysterious and strange Auri? Yes, please.

There’s no real plot-line, no story — it’s more of a slice-of-life kind of thing. How does Auri spend a week — in what seems a representative, yet atypical, sample. It’s truly rewarding to see how Auri’s mind works — and to get an inkling of an idea how she fits in (or, at least, fit in) to The University.

The voice isn’t that of Kvothe, it’s nothing like Kvothe’s voice — which is a huge relief for many who wondered if Rothfuss could sound any other way. No, it’s just how Auri should sound. He (not at all surprisingly) captured her essence so well. For someone we know so little about, it’s astounding to me how often I read a line or paragraph or whatever and said, “Yes, this is her exactly.”

It’s tough for me to know how to say anything about this (in case you hadn’t noticed), so let me just stop trying: The Slow Regard of Silent Things is a nice read. A light, sad, whimsical read — with bit of darkness in the background (it only shows up in the vaguest sense). Just a pleasure.

I don’t know if Rothfuss has more things like this planned, or if the next things we’ll see out of him is the end of the Kingkiller Chronicles. While hoping for the latter, I’ll take either after reading this.

—–

4 1/2 Stars

Personal by Lee Child

By HCNewton

On November 12, 2014

In Fiction, Jack Reacher, Lee Child, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Personal

by Lee Child
Series: Jack Reacher, #19

Hardcover, 353 pg.
Delacorte Press, 2014
Read: November 10 – 11, 2014Someone took a pot-shot at the French president — and by pot-shot, I mean “almost impossible” sniper shot — it didn’t work, didn’t even break the “invisible armor” glass in front of him. But still, bad form, and people are expected to do something about that. Various and sundry intelligence agencies across the globe come up with a short list of snipers capable of making the shot. Disturbingly enough, most of them are employed by various and sundry nations across the world, but there’s a small handful that are just tracked (almost infallibly) by the same groups.

In this case, there were four unaccounted for at the time of the shooting. A British sniper, a Russian sniper, an American, and (I think) a French sniper (clearly doesn’t matter…minor spoiler). Each respective government gets someone to track down their potential suspect. Once upon a time, MP Jack Reacher arrested the American. So someone in the upper echelons of the Army reached out to Reacher in some cloak and dagger-y way to get him involved in tracking down the U. S. sniper.

Reacher has nothing better to do — no longer on his mission to meet Maj. Susan Turner (and wasn’t really given a choice, anyway) — and he owes the Brig. General. So “Sherlock Homeless,” as he’s been dubbed by the Army, heads off to Arkansas, Paris and London to track down his prey. The requisite purchases of replacement clothing, fights, and Reacher-ness ensues.

There was one particular highlight for me. There’s a London gangster, Little Joey — a giant of a man, makes look Reacher look like . . . well, like Tom Cruise standing next to the book’s version of Jack Reacher — Reacher’s initial internal description of him makes the whole book worth reading.

The most disturbing thing about this book is the constant, universal, assumption that governments will cover up, manipulate media and spy on everyone they choose to. In other novels — Gone Tomorrow jumps to mind as the best example — Reacher’s resented this kind of thing, complained about it. But this time, he uses it, takes it for granted — this could just be Reacher the pragmatist and we could get a return to form next time. But the way that everyone else — no matter their nationality or role in the investigation — assumes this, and doesn’t care about it, disturbed me. Mostly because I figure it’s fairly realistic.

The first few chapters are riddled with Reacher describing himself as “Predictable.” And, yeah, he is — both in his world and as a character in novels. He’s going to act a certain way, he’s going to shoot, punch, elbow and kick a certain amount of people. He will win the day, leave a few bodies in his wake, and at least charm a lady or two along the way (at his most chaste). Predictable. But satisfying. Scratching a particular itch for readers in a way only Lee Child can.

This seems to be a pretty divisive book amongst fans, for reasons I don’t particularly understand — on the whole the complaints I’ve seen about this one could be applied to 12-15 of the others, it’s just the way Child works. Maybe my expectations are different than others, but this one checked all my “Reacher” boxes and provided a few hours of entertainment.

Predictable can just be another word for Reliable.

—–

4 Stars

Poison Fruit by Jacqueline Carey

By HCNewton

On November 11, 2014

In Fiction

Poison Fruit

by Jacqueline Carey
Hardcover, 437 pg.
Roc, 2014
Read: October 7 – 10, 2014This one just made me mad.

Yes, there was some very good character development. Some of the backup stories that we’ve been waiting 3 books to get resolved, gets resolved. There’s even a great, epic climactic battle. Daisy gets to be kick-ass on more than one occasion.

But…but…but. It started with her being terrible, careless and incompetent.

And even then, I’m getting ahead of myself. Things start off with Daisy and her closeted werewolf partner, Cody, investigating what seems like a pretty run of the mill case (from the point of view of the reader, not the people being terrorized by the supernatural person). While they’re moving on that, there’s some follow-up on the events of the last book — namely a class action lawsuit against the local governments due to the pain and suffering that the bystanders and spectators weren’t protected from.

Now basically, due to miscellaneous shenanigans, if the settlement reached is too large, the city of Pemkowet will have to sell off a bunch of land — Hel’s demesne. And things will get bad from there. So, basically, it’s all about stopping the trial — or winning it. Which will be difficult as the opposing lawyer can bend the wills of whomever he wants.

So, what do Daisy and the rest do? Highlight to see the spoilers if you want: They cook up one harebrained scheme that may work, and then they wait months for the trial to start. That’s it. And sure, the scheme works — for a day or two, until the opposing lawyer proves he’s not an idiot, figures out what they’re doing and stops it.

Could they have come up with other things to try? A back-up plan, maybe? Could they have investigated just a smidgen to figure out who was behind these antics and maybe find a way to stop things before it got to trial? Nope.

So because they don’t do enough, a big battle between Daisy and the eldritch community and the people that Daisy couldn’t bother herself with investigating, and it is an awesome battle featuring nifty and tragic things — like any good climactic battle would. And trust me, I’d like to spend time talking about and thinking about how great a lot of what happened at that battle was, but I can’t. Because the only way we got there was through Daisy neglecting her duties as Hel’s liaison. It’s not apathy, and I give her too much credit for being distracted by her love life (and how distracting can it be, really, with one date a week?).

You know what Ivy Tamwood, Rachel Morgan, Toby Daye, Kitty Norville, Harper Blaine, Kara Gillian, or Anna Strong (to name a few of UF’s better female characters) would’ve done in this situation? Something. They wouldn’t have waited to see if Plan A would work, they’d have done what they could to prevent Plan A from being necessary.

Oh yeah, and the love story ends up concluding the way we all thought it would — with a little Deus ex machina thrown in to get it there. At that point, I didn’t care, really.

I was initially disappointed to find out that this would be the end of this series, but now I’m absolutely okay with that.

—–

2 Stars

Category: Fiction Page 302 of 348

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