Tag: The Secret

The Secret & Hunting Virgins: Two Short Stories by Wayne Hawk: I Read It So You Don’t Have To

The Secret & Hunting VirginThe Secret & Hunting Virgins:
Two Short Stories

by Wayne Hawk

DETAILS: 
Publisher: Page Publishing
Publication Date: September 10, 2020
Format: Paperback
Length: 80 pg.
Read Date: May 9, 2024

What’s The Secret & Hunting Virgin About?

These are two short stories, sort of linked by protagonists purporting to possess some unique spiritual role/status. They’re thrillers best described as a mix of realism and SF/Fantasy. That’s really all I can think of to link them.

The Secret

This story follows a man who cannot keep a secret as he takes a road trip to visit his father one last time before he dies. At his father’s deathbed, he learns a secret that will change the world. Somehow surviving a hail of bullets that don’t prevent him from learning this secret, he’s instead imprisoned on trumped-up charges and put into solitary confinement (while never explaining why the government doesn’t use one more bullet once there’s a clear shot). Will he be able to outwit the guards and other prison officials to broadcast this secret?

Hunting Virgins

This is both an experiment into how often—and in how many ways—the word “virgin” can be used in a 33-page story as well as the story of a team of hard-partying hazardous-tree removal experts. At some point, their leader has a religious conversion and leaves this profession to start a church on the other side of the U.S.

A decade later, he returns with an offer too good to be true (literally). He recruits his old team—plus his beautiful and virtuous daughter who shouldn’t be anywhere near these louts—to go with him to a portion of Siberia to clear part of a forest heretofore untouched by logging in exchange for a small fortune. Why Russian loggers are incapable of doing this for far less, we’re not told. Nor why any company thinks that logging in an area so difficult to get to makes any sense at all, especially when the expenses incurred to do that are so large.

But maybe their dangerous profession and the well-known hardships of the Siberian climate aren’t the most deadly things that lay in wait for them…

So, what did I think about The Secret & Hunting Virgin?

I honestly can’t tell you which story made me angrier—the plots were disappointing, unoriginal, and somehow nonsensically inexplicable at the same time. The characters were utterly unlikeable at best and contemptible (in an uninteresting way) most of the time. The writing was dry and uncompelling—and the ineptness of the prose was only challenged by its lack of clarity for the least appealing part of it.

The ways that Christian—or pseudo-Christian and near gnostic—ideas are scattered throughout these two stories are just as off-putting as the rest of the elements of this writing. I can’t tell if Hawk is really trying to tell stories with Christian themes* or if he’s just using the trappings of those themes the way that Pierce Brown uses the trappings of the Roman Empire to tell his stories. Either way, he fails.

* I’m using Christian in the broadest and most watered-down possible sense here.

“The Secret” features a couple of people with delusions of grandeur comparing themselves to Apostles to bring the world one of the tiredest ideas this side of Whitley Strieber. I wondered a few times if I’d have liked it more if Hawk hadn’t tried to compress the events into such a short space, but had developed them fully and let them breathe. But I just don’t see any evidence that he’s capable of doing that. He spent more time on this than he should’ve.

“Hunting Virgins” is even worse—these tree-removal experts have the maturity of the main characters of the 80s Porky’s films* and should be trusted with power tools to the same extent. There’s nothing about them that says megacorporations should shower them with money to do anything—and when things start to go wrong for them, there’s nothing about the situation to make the reader care.

* I can’t believe that I remembered these things existed, either. Or that anyone ever used the word “film” to describe them with a straight face.

Why did I finish? I was curious—and the book is crazy short. Also, I spent enough money on this volume that I couldn’t let myself just walk away. I regret the whole thing and hope I’ve convinced you to avoid this experience.


1 Star

Literary Locals logo

The Secret by Lee Child and Andrew Child: Time for Me to Slip out the Back (away from) Jack

The SecretThe Secret

by Lee Child, Andrew Child (Narrator)

DETAILS:
Series: Jack Reacher, #28
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: October 24, 2023
Format: Hardcover
Length: 292 pg.
Read Date: December 2-4, 2023
Buy from Bookshop.org Support Indie Bookstores

What’s The Secret About?

It’s 1992 and Capt. Jack Reacher has been assigned to a task force organized by the Secretary of Defense. He’s the U.S. Army Representative, and there’s someone from the CIA, the FBI, and the Treasury Department. They’ve been brought together to investigate a series of possible murders of scientists from around the country—although there’s the possibility they’re freak accidents or suicides, too.

In the 60s these men were part of a secret project that was abandoned after an accident caused some civilian deaths. But now it appears that someone has found their names and is working their way down a list. Can Reacher and the task force find the killer in time? What’s the purpose of killing them now?

So, what did I think about The Secret?

If this were a thriller about any other character and had someone else’s name on the cover, I might have said it was enjoyable enough.

But it’s about Jack Reacher and Lee Child’s name is on the cover (even if it’s pretty well established that Andrew is doing most of the writing), so there are certain standards that have to be met. The Secret falls far short of them.

I could go on a prolonged screed listing my problems with the book—but I’m going to skip it. Those problems range from minor (there’s no way that a 1992 version—or a 2023 version—of Reacher is going to say “pearl clutching”) to major (there’s no reason for the big multiple attackers vs. Reacher fight in the middle other than it’s been a hundred pages since Reacher’s done anything violent, and that time was pretty quick and undramatic). I’d also say I was disappointed by the use of the rest of the task force, which was subpar at best, the big reveal at the end was lazy, and the concluding chapters were a letdown from the mediocre pages before it.

But for me, it boils down to this—that guy walking around in a uniform wasn’t Jack Reacher. He was a decent Generic Thriller hero who could possibly develop into a character worthy of a series. And that’s a fatal flaw.

The Secret wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t good, either. Reacher deserves better from his creator—and from anyone hired to carry on the character, and he’s not getting it. I’ve tried (and some of my readers have told me I shouldn’t) to give this new arrangement time to develop into something worthwhile, but I think my experiment is over. I’m going to move on to other thriller series now—I may check in with what the Child brothers are doing in a couple of years, but if I’m going to keep a positive regard for Jack Reacher, I’m going to have to focus on my memories (and whatever Alan Ritchson is doing on the show).


2 1/2 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
Irresponsible Reader Pilcrow Icon

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén