Nadirs

Every long book series has its ups and downs, and even the better ones sometimes load up some dead solid stinkers. Here are three of them.

Beginning in 2013, Mark Dawson began telling the story of John Milton, an assassin for British intelligence who finally saw one body too many and decided to retire. His agency prefers to dictate the terms of his retirement, however, and their vision is a much more final one. The first several volumes of the series dealt with Milton on the run, with the situation eventually shifting to leave him on his own as long as he stays quiet.

For his part, Milton just wants a simple and quiet life, spending his time living out Step Nine of the Alcoholics Anonymous "12 Steps," about making amends. He can't make amends to the people he's killed, so he resolves to help people out when they need it, especially if they need the kind of help a ruthless former assassin can provide. The idea is very much like the 1980s television show (and Denzel Washington movies) The Equalizer.

In the 11th book Blackout, Milton's "client," so to speak, is himself. He wakes up in a motel room in the Philippines, reeking of alcohol and unable to remember the previous night. Falling off the wagon would be bad enough, but he soon finds that there's a dead body in the room, and the police have just shown up. Is he a murderer as well? He can't remember, and soon the stakes get higher when he's transferred to a brutal prison with almost every hand raised against him. Without freedom, allies or memories Milton will have to find a way to learn the answers to his questions, if he can survive long enough to ask them.

Dawson has used Milton's AA experiences as more than a convenient plot hook -- his regular attendance at meetings helps him but also constantly reminds him of the destruction he's caused, taunting him with an absolution that can't really be his since he can't show the complete honesty the program demands and tell the story of his wrongs. That dimension has made for interesting layers to the character and offers not only a reason for his decisions to help people but also a logical space for self-reflection on Milton's part.

Unfortunately, little of that is on display in Blackout. Dawson opens by setting the scene in the motel room but then flashes back to show us how we got here, a plot device that often signals an author doesn't have a lot of confidence in his story's power to hook a reader. If so, the lack of confidence is not misplaced, since Blackout just throws together a bunch of scenes of Milton getting beaten up while telegraphing the villain at the center of his troubles and introducing a female character from his past in order to fridge her and yet another flashback sequence. Whether it's because it focuses on Milton's own life rather than his self-chosen mission to help others or some other reason, Blackout is hands down the worst book in this otherwise fast-paced, well-written series that centers on an intriguingly layered character and features top-level action writing.

-----

If you were to say that on some level, Terry Brooks dislikes the world of Shannara that propelled him to a multi-decade career as a best-selling author, The Skaar Invasion would not be a good rebuttal witness. The second in a four-volume series that is supposed to provide the chronological end of the Shannara books, Invasion highlights why these multi-volume chronicles of this magical world are so much weaker than the stand-alone or more loosely-connected book groups like the first three.

The mysterious invaders first glimpsed in The Black Elfstone have shown themselves as they use traitors among the Druid Order to defeat that group of magic users and seal away Paranor, the seat of their power. The invaders, called the Skaar, are a vanguard of a larger army that itself plans to carve out a new homeland for their people as their current one withers and dies from drought and disease. Dar Leah, a guardian of the Druids, finds himself strangely connected to the invading force's commander, a woman named Ajin d'Amphere. Drisker Arc, one of the last remaining druids, must find a way to reverse the spell that seals Paranor away from the world and move against the traitors who trapped him there. Tarsha Kaynin seeks signs of her brother Tavo, and learns that he has not fared well in their time apart, even while his terrifying power has grown.

Then there's another couple of arcs as the leaders of the human Federation finally meet the Skaar and a mysterious man named Rocun Arneas enlists a young ne'er-do-well to help him -- a ne'er-do-well with a very weighty name in Shannara history -- Shea Ohmsford.

Invasion labors under several burdens: Brooks has told us before about a greedy, expansionist Federation, about a Final Druid who will have to thwart the great enemies, about seemingly unstoppable forces arrayed against our heroes, and so on. Plus, the fact that this is one story spread out over four books makes for glacial plot development, for one space-filling internal monologue or digression after another and for enough red herrings to dam a river. Ajin is intrigued by Dar and plagued by dissent within her own ranks, but given the treachery and innocent blood she has shed herself or caused to be shed it's hard to feel any sympathy for her. A strange non-relationship between her and her chief spy -- who is given the adolescently snicker-worthy title of Penetrator -- just generates more fog.

Shannara has often been dismissed as a poor man's Middle Earth, usually without justification. Brooks is writing his own stories, for all that he began the series with a tale that owed quite a bit to Frodo & Co. When he's written books that stand alone or just loosely link with others, like the original trilogy and the recent "Defenders of Shannara" series, he produces some solid, well-done fantasy that's worth the read even if it's not as highbrow as some might like. But when the books are part of one longer story, split apart by ridiculously contrived cliff-hangers, they're a trial and a chore to get through.

-----

Hostage rescue expert and sometime secret operative Jonathan "Digger" Grave is trying to relax on an exclusive island resort, taking some well-earned time off to see what might come of his relationship with Gail Bonneville.

So naturally terrorists attack.

Grave and Bonneville manage to elude being herded together with the resort's other guests, but they had to leave behind some bodies and that will give the bad guys certain knowledge that they've got a formidable enemy lurking around outside their tightly-controlled group of hostages. Although they don't know how formidable, they will learn when Grave lives up to his code name and the title of the 10th Grave book, Scorpion Strike.

Although author John Gilstrap is a good hand at an action scene and gives our team of heroes some good wise-cracking chemistry, the series has been uneven. Final Target offered some more nuance to Grave as he and his partner Boxers had to escort a group of children out of the jungle ahead of a ruthless crime lord. But Strike doesn't build on that quality, stitching together a series of set pieces that never gel and demonstrating clearly the truth of playwright Anton Chekhov's statement about how a gun shown in the first act needs to go off in the third or the audience will wonder why. Gilstrap serves up at least two different characters among the hostages who foreshadow events that never come to pass. The terrorists' reason for acting are murky and buried under two or three conspiracy layers, and their chief lacks consistent definition: Is he just brutal? Is he sadistic? Is he motivated by something else? Who knows, and as far as Strike shows us, who cares?

Other hostages, as well as the rescuers Boxers recruits to storm the island and save Grave and Bonneville, are ciphers for most of their time on stage, with clunky internal dialogue introduced now and again to show us why we are supposed to care about them or what happens to them. In what's been a sort of middling-to-fair series, Strike does manage to stand out, but probably not in the way that Gilstrap or his publisher would want.