Clive Cussler apparently writes thrillers 24 hours a day --
Corsair is one of four books released under his name this year. It's the latest in his "
Oregon Files" series, first co-written with Craig Dirgo and now Jack Du Brul. These six books feature the mysterious Corporation, a high-tech black operations outfit that handles sensitive matters for the U.S. government using an impressive variety of weaponry and equipment. Led by The Chairman, Juan Cabrillo, the Corporation operates from the
Oregon, a tramp steamer that looks barely afloat but which conceals an entire Bond movie's worth of gear, shootin' irons of all kinds and a crew of rough and ready agents. In
Corsair, the Corporation must rescue the U.S. Secretary of State, who was kidnapped when her plane was shot down over Libya. There's also a connection to a Barbary-pirate-era ship and legend of treasure thrown in for good measure. It's all kind of preposterous, and any depth the characters have they've borrowed from the Techno-Thriller Office of Central Casting. But Cussler doesn't pretend he's doing anything different and it seems he can't write a bad action scene.
Corsair is a zipline of a read that will rush by quickly and probably not linger, but which is a lot of fun while it lasts.
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Dead Silence is the 16th "Doc Ford" novel by Randy Wayne White. Ford is a marine biologist who also happens to be a sometimes-retired secret agent. He lives in South Florida and consults with a number of clients in both of his fields of expertise. Several oddball characters populate the area and circulate in and out of the Doc Ford novels, including his hippie stoner pal with a mysterious past, Tomlinson. That past plays a role in
Dead Silence. While visiting a lady friend who happens to be a U.S. Senator, Ford foils an attempt to kidnap her. Unfortunately, the kidnappers get the teenage essay contest winner who the Senator was showing around New York City on his prize tour, and she enslists Doc's aid to find the boy before time runs out. Although the series has a big following and Doc's had some entertaining adventures,
Dead Silence is a big sprawling mess, mashed together like a series of writing exercises someone's tried to craft into a novel using tacked-on transitions. The story hangs on a baker's dozen of coincidences, each individually less plausible than a royal flush deal from Doc Holliday. Together they add up to a tale even more unlikely than surviving a negative performance review from Darth Vader. As sauce, White throws in a couple of ugly -- and in one case, completely irrelevant -- murders.
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With
Brimstone, Robert B. Parker supposedly brings to a close his trilogy featuring Old West lawmen Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. In
Appaloosa and
Resolution, detective novelist Parker found a new vein of creativity and energy that his other series of books had begun to sorely lack. Time will tell if Parker decides to continue Cole and Hitch as a series; he had originally planned for
Appaloosa as a stand-alone, but fan response brought forth the other two books. In
Brimstone, Cole and Hitch find themselves in a town of that name, having found Cole's wandering lady-love, Allie French. They hire on as deputies and see that trouble may be in the offing between saloon owner Pike and town preacher Brother Percival. Allie has begun to attend services at Brother Percival's church, but Cole and Hitch must find a way to keep the law and play no favorites.
Brimstone is a fun enough read for a Western fan but is also easily the weakest of the three Cole-Hitch books. That Percival is up to no good is obvious from the get-go. The evil clergyman is a lazy trick for any novelist and it's especially so for Parker; in 36 Spenser novels, eight Jesse Stone novels, six Sunny Randall novels and a dozen others, Parker has had probably one honest, straight-dealing religious character (a nun who works with runaways in 2002's Jesse Stone entry,
Death in Paradise).
Brimstone stands head, shoulders and Stetson above anything Parker's modern characters have done in the last several years, but this kind of shoddy shortcut makes me hope he either really is finished with Cole and Hitch or he can manage to match future volumes to
Appaloosa's level.
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