Been on that ol' exercise bike a lot recently...
Robert Crais is a former
TV writer who started writing crime drama and private sleuth tales featuring the duo of Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. Cole is witty and personable, Pike is not. In
The Watchman, Pike does a friend a favor by agreeing to bodyguard the Hiltonesque heiress Larkin Barkley, who was in an auto accident and is now the target of assassins. Pike finds himself unsure of who he can trust when it seems that every move he makes to safeguard Larkin is anticipated by those out to get her. Crais writes snappy dialogue, brisk action and keeps the pedal to the floor on his story. A Crais novel is a quick read, but it's certainly a lot of fun and a great way to spend a few hours.
-----
Steve Berry seems to have a
Robert Ludlum jones in the titles of his novels, Ludlum gave us
The Aquitaine Progression, The Bourne Identity, The Parsifal Mosaic, and Berry's so far produced
The Templar Legacy, The Charlemagne Pursuit and now
The Venetian Betrayal. Former Justice Department agent turned rare-book dealer (?) Cotton Malone, nearly the victim of an arsonist, finds himself caught up in a conspiracy that involves the lost tomb of Alexander the Great, germ warfare, a cure for AIDS and a central Asian dictator who wants to follow Alexander's path in reverse and control the world from her nation. There's enough plot threads in here to weave a ballfield tarp, and Berry almost manages to juggle them successfully. There's nothing special about the characters or the writing, but some of the technical details are well thought-out and the action scenes crisply done.
-----
If
Lilith Saintcrow isn't a pen name, I'll eat a book (I'll pick the book, and in doing so I will pick one that has pages made of chocolate-chip cookies, so it's not a bad bet on my part). Her first set of urban fantasy novels involved a woman named Dante Valentine, hired to work for the devil in some sort of near-future dystopia. With
Night Shift, she starts a new series, featuring Jill Kismet, a Demon Hunter who works with religious and civil authorities to keep evil from doing too much damage to her city. Kismet's trying to figure out the being behind some truly savage killings that are like nothing she's ever seen before, and she'll get help from sources evil and good to do it.
Night Shift is a pastiche of bad Bogie and worse Buffy wrapped up in a
Mary Sue fanfic tale that meanders all around the map. It winds up with a silly twist ending that makes you realize you really
can yawn and go, "Huh?" at the same time.
(Edited to add a link for the "Mary Sue" reference. Evidently I'm a little too hip for my own good, and isn't that a surprise for anyone who's actually met me).
No comments:
Post a Comment