Book Review: Synchronicity by Michaelbrent Collings

Let me start off by saying that Synchronicity is a bit of a departure from what I consider to be Michaelbrent Collings’ stock in trade: slow-burn horror. I’d say this one edges over more into thriller material, though it’s certainly got enough violence and weirdness to appeal to many horror fans. Set in the present day, this is the story of Tyler “Book” Malcolm, a happy-go-lucky con artist with mild psychic abilities who gets a major boost to his powers and then must outrun a horde of government agents and a madman named Kane who is on a quest to become a god.

I can’t help but compare this one to The Matrix in some ways. We’ve got a relatively ordinary guy (more on him below) plucked from a mundane existence, who becomes gifted with amazing powers by a couple of mentors, and then gets thrust into a life-or-death struggle with powerful forces who share his newfound abilities but who mostly outclass him in every way. A pretty classic framework that Collings has fun playing with.

Book isn’t a bad guy, he’s just a bit of a go-along-to-get-along kind of guy who’s looking for a good time in life and is unafraid to use his (subtle) psychic gifts to con people out of a little money that they can spare. He’s got a troubled past and lives mostly off the grid, with only a few people he cares about, but even with those chosen few, he keeps them at arm’s length.

Two mysterious strangers—Axel and Jade—make contact with Book and enlist him in their cause: fighting against the monstrous Kane, who possesses nigh god-like powers and has access to almost limitless resources. Axel has invented a machine that enables its users to gain control over another person’s body, effectively possessing that person and permanently absorbing some of their knowledge and skills. Kane also has this ability, and will do anything to kill the trio and steal the machine. And by do anything, I do mean anything, no matter how heinous. Kane is a psychopath on what he sees as a path to godhood; he’s truly willing to kill and torture anyone who poses even the slightest obstacle to his goals.

The action is fast and furious, with lots of excellent pursuit and combat sequences. Pacing is tight; it takes a few chapters to get into the rhythm and understand what’s going on, as Collings doesn’t spoonfeed the reader, but it never slows down. Characterization is generally good, though there are a few characters, including Book and Kane, whom I’d like to know more about—more details on their backstories (e.g., more on Book’s awful childhood and why/how Kane embarked on his quest for godhood) could only have enriched the story. I will admit that there was a point in the novel where I worried that Collings had violated Wells’ Law (which urges that there be a single fantastical assumption made in a story); after all, here we’ve got psychic powers, body swapping, and Matrix-like time dilation combat. But I realized that it all works together. The ending sets us up nicely for the further adventures of Book and company, so I’ll be curious to see if Collings follows this one up with a sequel.

Recommended, especially for those looking to mix body swapping and frenetic combat.

This review originally appeared in Hellnotes.

Book Review: Moscow Bound by Adrian Churchward

I enjoy modern-day political thrillers as much as the next guy, but it’s always chancy when you’re dealing with a first-time novelist. I’m happy to say that Adrian Churchward delivers in spades in his new thriller, MOSCOW BOUND.

Some mild plot spoilers follow.

Scott Mitchell is an idealistic British human rights attorney who has already made an enemy of the Russian government through his past defenses of some of Moscow’s Chechen opponents in the European Court of Human Rights. He has a rocky return to Moscow after his latest legal victory – the Russians are happy to put the fear of God (or Putin) into the guy – and is soon contacted by Ekaterina Romanova, a mysterious and beautiful (is there any other kind?) woman who asks for Mitchell’s help in locating her father, a man she’s never met. He was said to have been dragged off to a gulag and murdered decades before, but Ekaterina has new evidence suggesting he’s been alive, somewhere, all these years. Mitchell reluctantly agrees to help, but all of the people who might be able to shed light on the matter have a way of ending up dead before they offer much help. The pair soon run afoul of a general in Russian military intelligence who seems determined to prevent them from locating Ekaterina’s father because their investigation seems to tread dangerously close to a Vietnam War-era operation that has been ongoing for the last four decades. That seems like it should be ancient history, so why are people so willing to kill to prevent the truth from coming out?

I hesitate to reveal the exact nature of the mystery and why people are coming out of the woodwork to prevent the secret from getting at (it really is the core of the book’s plot). Suffice it to say that while MOSCOW BOUND’s plot hangs together just fine as a stand-alone novel, it is labeled as the first volume in the forthcoming “Puppet Meisters” trilogy (will the Germans inexplicably become involved at some point?). I hope to see the central mystery that is revealed at the end of MOSCOW BOUND (I won’t spoil that ending here) expanded, as it came in a bit of a rush. Some elaboration on the implications of the mystery at the core of this novel would help.

Churchward understands what it’s like to live and work in contemporary Russia, and necessarily navigate the complexities of Russian law, bureaucracy, and abuses of state power. While we have all the archetypal characters of this kind of “Ludlum” style political thriller – idealistic crusader; woman with a mysterious past; clever, tough, implacable foe, etc. – Churchward does a good job of bringing his characters to life. At times the pace dragged a bit, and I found myself wanting a dramatis personae to help keep all the names straight at times, but it’s an engaging story.

Recommended for those interested in thrillers set in contemporary Russia. I will be curious to see where Churchward and his characters take the story in the rest of the Puppet Meisters trilogy.

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Review copyright © 2014 J. Andrew Byers

Book Review: To the Devil, A Daughter by Dennis Wheatley

To the Devil, A Daughter
By Dennis Wheatley
Bloomsbury Reader
ISBN: 978-1448212620
2014; $15.00 trade paperback; $7.99 ebook

Long before William Peter Blatty’s THE EXORCIST ushered in a new-found fascination with the Devil, Satanism, and all things occult in the 1970s, Dennis Wheatley was penning occult thrillers that attracted readers by titillating them with tales of Satanic cults committing unspeakable acts in service of the Devil. TO THE DEVIL, A DAUGHTER is one of Wheatley’s “Black Magic” novels (one of eleven out of his 60+ novels) recently reprinted by Bloomsbury. Though it doesn’t involve any of the protagonists of his earlier Black Magic novel (THE DEVIL RIDES OUT), TO THE DEVIL, A DAUGHTER is explicitly set in the same setting, with some of the events of RIDES OUT briefly alluded to in DAUGHTER.

Some minor plot spoilers follow.

The story opens simply enough with Molly Fountain, a mystery novelist who had served as a secretary in British intelligence circles during the war, wondering who her mysterious new neighbor is. Fountain is renting a house in the French Riviera while she writes her latest manuscript when a young woman moves in next door. The young woman lives alone, never receives visitors, and wanders around outside at night, which seems innocent enough, but this attracts Fountain’s interest. After introducing herself to the young woman, Fountain learns that the young woman is far more mysterious than she initially appears: she is living under an assumed name and has been sent to France by her distant father and ordered to remain in hiding there until after her upcoming birthday. Fountain is an inveterate meddler who can’t leave well enough alone, so she arranges for her university student son John and an old friend who still works for British intelligence, Colonel Verney, to come for a visit and help her get to the bottom of the mystery. As it turns out, Fountain needs all the help she can get when it becomes apparent that the young woman is being sought by a Satanic cult with whom her father had formerly been involved and is at the center of a truly disturbing plot (which I don’t want to spoil). What follows is a desperate race across France and England to protect the girl and then retrieve her once she falls into the hands of the villains before she can be sacrificed.

Wheatley was known to have done a good bit of research on the occult and magical practitioners in the course of his writing career, and it’s known that he carried on correspondence with Aleister Crowley, among others. Not to spoil anything, but Crowley and some of his past enter the story here through some lengthy expository passages. As with previous Black Magic novels, Wheatley makes no bones about it: magic and the Devil are real, and those who serve dark forces can freely call upon them for tangible aid. Wheatley has received criticism over the years for inflicting his research on his readers, but I think including these passages on magic and the workings of its practitioners only adds to the story and the sense of verisimilitude that Wheatley tries to create in what might otherwise be a run-of-the-mill pulpish thriller.

Hammer Horror adapted this novel – very loosely – for film in a 1976 version starring Richard Widmark, Christopher Lee, Honor Blackman, and Natassja Kinski. The plot of the film bears only the most superficial resemblance to the novel, and was excoriated by Wheatley, who deemed it obscene. If you’re a fan of Hammer, or Christopher Lee, it’s worth watching nevertheless, it just doesn’t have much to do with the book, outside of dealing with roughly similar themes.

Recommended as a good entry point to Wheatley’s fiction (especially his Black Magic novels) and an entertaining read in its own right. What could have been a stereotypical adventure novel from the early 1950s is, in Wheatley’s hands, a slow reveal of the plot pervaded by a genuine sense of menace. The stakes are very real, the villains truly monstrous, and the heroes unafraid to use extreme measures to put an end to the scheme.

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Review copyright © 2014 J. Andrew Byers

Book Review: The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley

The Devil Rides Out
By Dennis Wheatley
Bloomsbury Reader
ISBN: 978-1448213009
2013; $15.00 trade paperback; $7.99 ebook

One of Dennis Wheatley’s most famous novels, THE DEVIL RIDES OUT is a supernatural thriller originally published in 1934, and the first of Wheatley’s so-called “Black Magic” novels that explore a series of confrontations between Satanists and those seeking to stop them. It has just been republished as part of a new set of attractively bound trade paperback reprints by Bloomsbury Reader. While Wheatley wrote a large number of very popular thrillers and adventure novels, this was the first of his works to explicitly deal with the occult. It’s a doozy, full of plenty of action and occult menace, though it’s also what I would describe as a “mannerly” thriller, depicting the actions of a clique of genteel aristocrats and upper-crust Brits.

THE DEVIL RIDES OUT picks up shortly where one of Wheatley’s earlier novels, THE FORBIDDEN TERRITORY, leaves off, and the early pages of DEVIL reference the earlier events. I’d say that it isn’t necessary to have read FORBIDDEN before this one, but reading the earlier work certainly would expand the characterization of the protagonists and make them seem much more fully fleshed out. Wheatley’s recurring protagonists include: the elderly but still spry French exile, the Duc de Richleau, who knows a great deal of occult lore and leads the group in opposing the Satanic cult; the wealthy Jewish banker, Simon Aron, who is in way over his head and has inadvertently fallen under the sway of evil; the brash young American adventurer, Rex Van Ryn, who falls in love with a mysterious young woman named Tanith, a psychic of great power and a member of the Satanic cult; and well-connected, upper-crust Brit, Richard Eaton, a skeptic about the occult who has settled down to life with his new wife and infant daughter.

The novel opens simply enough: Richleau and Rex discover that their friend Simon Aron has become involved with a Satanic cult led by the charismatic sorcerer and high priest Mocata. To Simon, his involvement began as just dabbling in the occult, but it’s quickly become apparent that he features prominently in Mocata’s plans, and is destined for a bad end (and by that, I mean, drained of his wealth, mystically mind-controlled to commit unspeakable acts, and eventually sacrificed). The situation is complicated by the fact that Mocata wields true supernatural power – this isn’t just a matter of lunatics playing around with meaningless rituals, but people who are capable of working actual spells, summoning demons, and the like. Wheatley is not coy about how the supernatural – and specifically black magic – is represented here: magic is real, the Devil is real, and he is capable of actively intervening in the world when called upon to do so by his followers. Richleau is the only one of the heroes to have any knowledge of the supernatural, while the rest have to witness the power of black magic before they’re convinced that anything supernatural is going on. I don’t want to spoil the plot’s twists and turns, but I will say that it’s a mix of adventure and occult horror that’s ultimately more thriller than pure horror. There’s a genuine sense of menace throughout though, and very real stakes: innocent lives are at stake, with the penalty for failure by the protagonists being the triumph of truly depraved evil-doers and the ritual murder of a child.

Some critics have complained that Wheatley occasionally uses too much exposition (coming from the mouths of his protagonists) to convey the fruits of his research on magic, occult lore, esoteric practices, and the like. Those passages are present here, and occasionally slow down the plot a bit, but I think they only serve to enrich the story and add a touch of verisimilitude to the proceedings, even if the delivery may come off a little forced at times.

I should also note that the book was the loose inspiration for the eponymous – and notorious – Hammer Horror film from 1968 (screenplay by the late, great Richard Matheson), starring Christopher Lee in a fine performance as the Duc de Richleau. If you’re a fan of Hammer films, you probably owe it to yourself to read the original novel, even though its plot only bears a superficial resemblance to the film.

Certainly recommended, if only so you can see what all the fuss is about when it comes to the iconic Black Magic novels of Dennis Wheatley. This is a good entry point to Wheatley’s fiction. It’s fast paced, and while it’s not a gorefest, it holds up very well against other pulp adventures, especially if you’re looking for an occult thriller.

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Review copyright © 2014 J. Andrew Byers

Book Review: The Forbidden Territory by Dennis Wheatley

The Forbidden Territory
By Dennis Wheatley
Bloomsbury Reader
ISBN: 978-1448213061
2013; $15.00 trade paperback; $7.99 ebook

Dennis Wheatley needs no introduction to fans of horror and suspense literature. Wheatley’s prolific output of adventure novels – many involving elements of the supernatural and Satanism – was immensely popular for decades but has been much less readily available in recent years. This is the first volume in a new set of attractively bound trade paperback reprints by Bloomsbury Reader. Cover designs for the series are minimalist, but striking, and I hope they are effective at drawing in new readers. Because much of Wheatley’s work has been available only in increasingly hard-to-find out of print editions – at least in the U.S., I assume he is more readily available in the U.K. – this is a very welcome addition to the shelves.

Published in 1933, THE FORBIDDEN TERRITORY was Wheatley’s first published novel and unlike some of his later works that delve deeper into occult topics, Satanism, and more lurid themes, it is an unabashed adventure novel. It also introduces four of Wheatley’s recurring protagonists: the elderly but still spry French exile, the Duc de Richleau; the wealthy Jewish banker, Simon Aron; the brash young American adventurer, Rex Van Ryn; and well-connected, upper-crust Brit, Richard Eaton. Though it lacks the supernatural elements of some of the later novels in the series, it does introduce the protagonists who will go on to have more occult adventures, and highlights Wheatley’s skill at penning a darn good adventure story. I should also note that the book became an immediate best-seller in 1933 and Alfred Hitchcock bought the film rights. Though Hitchcock himself doesn’t seem to have been involved in making the film adaptation, a movie based on the novel came out in 1934. I haven’t yet seen that film, but while it seems to have taken some liberties with the plot and characters, is still favorably reviewed and said to be one of the better screen adaptations of Wheatley’s fiction.

The plot of THE FORBIDDEN TERRITORY seems pretty straight-forward: Rex Van Ryn has traveled to the Soviet Union seeking a hidden tsarist treasure and, unsurprisingly, has fallen afoul of the authorities. He has been imprisoned in a Soviet prison in a remote area but eventually manages to get word of his capture to his friends, chief among them the mysterious old exiled nobleman, the Duc de Richleau. The good duke, along with two of Rex’s other friends, make their way into the Soviet Union, managing to shake their Soviet minders, then they have to locate Rex, somehow get him out of a Soviet prison, then escape several thousand miles to the West, all the while evading a massive manhunt. Then things get complicated. I don’t want to spoil all the twists and turns, but we have here all the elements of a great action-adventure novel: a femme fatale; wining, dining, and high society; a relentless, ruthless secret police officer; deposed noblemen and a hidden treasure; military secrets; spies, lies, and betrayal; car chases, shoot-outs, and countless cliffhangers; and an omnipresent sense of danger. Suffice it to say that THE FORBIDDEN TERRITORY provides almost a blueprint for how to compose a thriller.

We tend to think about the Soviet Union and its relationship with the West in terms of the Cold War, but THE FORBIDDEN TERRITORY makes clear that the first Red Scare was alive and well in 1933, with the Soviet Union very much an enigma, albeit a fascinating and frightening one, for the West. This is also an interesting look at Stalin’s Soviet Union before the Second World War, at least as it was imagined (and feared) by some in the U.K. in the early 1930s. This is a staunchly anti-Communist vision of the USSR; unlike at least some of his upper-crust peers, Wheatley was not one of the many British intellectuals who flirted with socialism, or even active supported for the international communist movement in the 1930s.

THE FORBIDDEN TERRITORY is definitely recommended as a rip-roaring action/adventure thriller from the early 1930s that is decidedly better written than most adventure pulps from the same period. It’s also a great introduction to some of Dennis Wheatley’s most iconic characters. My only caveat would be that if you’re expecting explicitly supernatural elements – as found in some of Wheatley’s “black magic” works – you might be disappointed that those elements aren’t present here. But as a straight historical thriller, this one is hard to beat.

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Review copyright © 2014 J. Andrew Byers

Book Review: The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, by Sax Rohmer

The first of Sax Rohmer’s classic Fu Manchu series, it was originally published in novel form in Great Britain in 1913 as The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu, collecting a series of short stories published in 1912. As a novel, the work contains thirty chapters, but, like others in the series, is more or less a series of semi-related, episodic story arcs of roughly a half-dozen chapters each. It is firmly in the “Yellow Peril” genre of literature, and indeed, encapsulates – if not originates – most of the tropes we associate with this kind of work. The Oriental mastermind Fu Manchu has spawned countless imitators and representations in films, books, radio shows, comics, and art. From our perspective in the twenty-first century, you may find the anxiety-ridden Orientalism present in the novels deplorable, but you should at least take a look and see why this literature has resonated so strongly for decades. This first in the series is a good place to begin those explorations.

Spoilers ahead – continue onward at your own peril.

The book begins with a fateful meeting between the narrator, Dr. John Petrie, a seemingly ordinary British physician, and his old friend, Denis Nayland Smith, another British gentleman who has served for years as a roving special police commissioner in Burma and elsewhere in Asia. This meeting, and the threats and perils our protagonists encounter, set the stage for the rest of the series. The pair are very much in the Holmes and Watson tradition, save that instead of Holmes’ special powers of observation and deduction, Nayland Smith enjoys an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Oriental and the ability to command the aid and support of pretty much all British government officials. Petrie brings his knowledge of medicine, chemistry, forensics, and he’s a crack shot with his revolver as well. In some of the later adventures in this novel, they are assisted by the doughty Inspector Weymouth of New Scotland Yard. The novel begins with Nayland Smith and Petrie’s investigation into the mysterious (locked-room style) death of Sir Crichton Davey who, as it turns out has been killed by the enigmatic “Zayat Kiss,” feared throughout the Orient. We learn that Nayland Smith is hot on the trail of the inscrutable Chinese mastermind, Dr. Fu Manchu (sometimes spelled with a hyphen, sometimes not), who is also behind Davey’s death, among many other crimes. Who is Fu Manchu? I will let Nayland Smith provide his iconic answer:

“Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government—which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man.” (Chapter Two)

In their first outing, there is undercover work in an opium den, a death trap, unexpected aid from Karamaneh (a reluctant female servant of Fu Manchu’s who will come to play a much larger role in the series), and the escape of Fu Manchu. Our protagonists next become involved in the minor affair of saving the life of an Episcopal clergyman, who was involved tangentially in the Boxer Rebellion but is now threatened by Fu Manchu for his actions in China. Then they are brought in to investigate the attempted murder of explorer and naturalist Sir Lionel Barton (these British noblemen don’t seem to have a very high life expectancy, do they?) Nayland Smith and Petrie also face Fu Manchu’s use of the dread Call of Siva, seemingly a kind of compulsion to suicide that Fu Manchu has mastered, among other outré threats.

I don’t want to provide too many spoilers so will forego running through the rest of the novel’s plot bit-by-bit, but the constant dueling with Fu Manchu as his various plots are discovered and narrowly thwarted continues. Time after time, Fu Manchu acts through agents (human and exotic animal alike) or, when forced to act himself, manages to narrowly escape, usually by gaining the upper hand over Nayland Smith or Petrie at the last second. One ally of the pair suffers a truly horrific fate, but again, no horrendous plot spoilers here.

In addition to Fu Manchu’s virtual menagerie of hideous and deadly animal and human assassins, he is also a master of chemistry who uses poison gas and, as we will see as the series advances, a variety of other fantastical elixirs unknown to modern science. He is also a cruel master of torture, to include the “wire jacket,” which I will not describe here except to say that the book contains passages with real menace and true horror. To be sure, the language is at times stilted, but it’s still capable of evoking feelings of atmospheric dread and so I found it effective as both thriller and horror novel.

I give this book a strong 4 stars out of 5. Yes, of course, it contains sentiments we now deride as racist. You knew that going into the book. Allow yourself to look past those flaws to see what all the fuss is about and why almost everyone has an idea of who Fu Manchu is. It’s a darn good adventure novel that’s well-plotted and with plenty of twists and turns, frights and horrors. Highly recommended.

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Review copyright 2011 J. Andrew Byers

Book Review: Level 26: Dark Origins by Anthony E. Zuiker and Duane Swierczynski

This serial killer thriller was billed as the first interactive, “digi-novel,” which means that every couple chapters, the reader is told to log onto a website and watch a short video clip. Is this the future of the book? I doubt it. It’s a fun thriller, even though it’s a bit more run-of-the-mill than its authors would like us to believe.

Some plot spoilers follow (though I promise not to ruin the book for you).

There’s a secret government agency that hunts serial killers and has created a taxonomy of murderers, with twenty-five levels. Amateurs like Son of Sam and John Wayne Gacy are rated at a mere Level 12 or 15. However, there’s a serial killer they call Sqweegel who is off-the-charts evil and has been rated a Level 26. He’s been quiescent for a while, but he’s back with a vengeance, and a retired, psychologically-damaged serial killer hunter named Steve Dark (yes, the names are a bit silly, why do you ask?) who is forced to help catch Sqweegel once and for all. Oh and of course, Sqweegel does his best to torment Dark and his family (what’s left of them; Sqweegel has killed most of Dark’s relatives before the book even began). There are plenty of plot twists and turns, and Zuiker and Swierczynski don’t pull any punches. This is a brutal story, even moreso than I ha expected when I began reading. If you’re at all squeamish about mixtures of sex and violence, avoid this one.

I must address the digital component of the book, because it’s such an integral part of the story and because it’s really the one thing that sets the book apart from dozens if not hundreds of similar thrillers. Here’s my biggest complaint about the supplemental videos: there were just too darn many of them. Twenty total, which meant that they came roughly every twenty pages, and the book had pretty big print, so I would have to stop reading, get up, go to my computer, load and watch a video every few minutes. More often than not, I found myself setting the book down when I hit the next video and coming back to it later. The videos themselves weren’t bad – acting was generally if not universally decent, and from some cool character actors I like. One of the videos was surprisingly sexually explicit, which didn’t bother me, but it might some folks. The casting on a couple parts was questionable: the lead male actor wasn’t believable as Steve Dark (he was played by a scrawny hipster type with a little tiny ponytail) and despite that Dark’s wife was supposed to be white (noted explicitly in the text and on a medical form in one of the videos), she was played by a light-skinned African American woman. I guess my biggest complaints about the videos themselves (other than their frequency) was that most were superfluous, showing action that could have been easily described in the text, and that they weren’t actually supplemental to the text – they often reveal, literally, “what happens next” in the story. So while some of the videos were pointless, the reader absolutely cannot skip any of the videos or the following chapter wouldn’t make much sense. I will say that the videos were critically important for one reason: they show how Sqweegel moves (imagine a psychotic contortionist in a head-to-toe white latex catsuit). Without seeing him in action, he wouldn’t have been half as creepy, so from that perspective, the videos were a valuable addition, but I certainly didn’t need twenty of them.

Ultimately, I give this one 3.5 stars out of 5. At its heart, this is a more or less traditional maverick serial killer hunter vs. an over-the-top serial killer. We’ve all seen this before, and if you’ve read one, you’ve basically read them all. Yes, Sqweegel is even more over-the-top than most serial killers (some of the stuff he does really is horrific), and the videos are an interesting touch, but they do little more than obfuscate the fact that this is a simple, familiar tale. It’s certainly not bad by any means, but it’s nothing earth-shattering either. There are two follow-ons (the third volume has not yet been released), and I’m curious enough how it turns out that I will probably pick up the second book in the trilogy, but I’m in no rush.

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Review copyright 2011 J. Andrew Byers

Book Review: Fun and Games by Duane Swierczynski

This is a really good book. And best of all, it’s the first volume in a new thriller trilogy that I’m excited about.

Some plot spoilers follow.

Charlie Hardie is kind of a loser. He’s a seemingly unmotivated slacker who supports his booze and old movie habit through housesitting. As it turns out, when the crap hits the fan, Charlie wasn’t always the loser he appears to be. He’s an ex-cop from Philly who tangled with the Albanian mob and accidentally got his partner and the partner’s family killed. Now he’s in a kind of unofficial witness protection and can’t even contact his own family lest his old enemies discover their whereabouts (how much you want to bet by the end of the trilogy he is forced to demolish Philly’s Albanian mob?). And make no mistake, the stuff hits the fan pretty early on in the novel. Charlie arrives at his new L.A. gig to find a paranoid B-List actress hiding out there from a group called “The Accident People” who work for the Hollywood heavy hitters (and others?) and specialize in killing people and making it look like accidents. The actress is their next target and Charlie becomes a loose end that has to be tied up. And by “tied up,” I mean murdered.

I’d have liked it maybe just a tiny bit better had the protagonist not been quite as, well, “superhuman” as he is. Sure, he starts off as a washed-up, alcoholic ex-cop who’s now basically just a loser who kills time by housesitting, getting wasted, and watching old movies until he passes out. But once the crazy stuff starts happening, we quickly realize that Charlie Hardie is far more than he appears to be. In fact, by the end of the book, Hardie has survived as much as Rasputin – he gets beaten, bludgeoned, tasered, shot, drowned, and had (what should be lethal) chemicals used on him. I don’t think I’m giving much away by saying that he survives it all (keep in mind, this is called the “Charlie Hardie” trilogy for a reason). The secondary characters and antagonists are well-crafted, the dialogue natural, and the pace pretty much never lets up. Despite my brief plot summary above (which doesn’t reveal much more than the back cover), there are plenty of twists and turns that will leave you guessing.

I give this one 4.5 stars out of 5. Great book, fast-paced, very exciting. Sure, we’re asked to suspend our disbelief at times just a little bit more than I’d like, but the premise is terrific, and it’s very well executed. I will definitely be picking up the next sequel.

Full disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program in exchange for a review.

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Review copyright 2011 J. Andrew Byers

Book Review: Fault Line by Barry Eisler

I have been a big fan of Barry Eisler’s ever since I read his first John Rain novel (concerning the increasingly complex adventures of John Rain, a half-Japanese assassin who tangles with the CIA – and that brief sentence in no way does justice to the complexities of the plot). I was disappointed when Eisler stopped writing Rain novels and started writing other stuff, and it’s taken me this long to get to the first of these non-Rain Eisler books.

Mild plot spoilers follow.

Alex Treven is an ambitious, up-and-coming Silicon Valley attorney specializing in software. He’s got a client who has created a new piece of software that’s going to be a really big deal, though Alex isn’t entirely sure of what the software can do. His chances at making partner are drastically diminished when the client dies under suspicious circumstances, along with the patent examiner in charge of the case. Alex also narrowly escapes an assassination attempt in his own home. He has no one else to turn to other than his estranged brother, Ben, a deep-black special operator. There’s a great deal of bad blood between the two, though Ben arrives to bail Alex out of trouble, and they quickly go on the run along with an Iranian-American junior attorney from Alex’s firm named Sarah Hosseini. Things go downhill from there once they realize who is actually trying to kill them (no spoilers here). The action is generally very good, especially the scenes when Ben Treven is introduced in mid-operation. That’s classic Eisler at his finest. There’s also plenty of sexual tension between the two brothers – who each desire Sarah – and this works well, though, oddly, Eisler tells us about all of their individual masturbatory habits in throwaway lines. Did we really need to know this, Barry?

I should note that the book is explicitly set in the Rain universe (there’s a quick mention of John Rain) and for the most part the plot and attention to detail in the characters’ operations are up to Eisler’s usual standards. The characters were the biggest let-down for me, however. None of them grabbed me, or were at all sympathetic or enjoyable as human beings. It’s hard to believe, I know, but John Rain the assassin is actually a far more likable guy than either of the Treven brothers. Alex is too nakedly ambitious and cold, and Ben is, well, just kind of an angry, cynical jerk who’s grown emotionally detached from American culture and civil society.

I give this one 3.5 stars out of 5, as it was a fun, quick read, but it could have been better, especially in the area of characterization. I wanted very badly to care about these characters being in mortal danger, but they just weren’t very sympathetic. I plan to read the sequel, though I’m concerned that the topic of that one is another thinly veiled platform for Eisler to pontificate about torture being bad (Requiem for an Assassin suffered because of this). We’ll see.

Review copyright 2011 J. Andrew Byers

Halloween Review: The Descent by Jeff Long

This is an action-adventure thriller with horror undertones; you just have to keep telling yourself that it’s a thriller, hope for the best, and suspend your disbelief. The book starts off really strongly, with three or four excellent chapters detailing weird and horrifying things happening to various people around the globe. That’s always a good start. If only the middle and end had fulfilled the early promise of the book. It’s relatively fast-paced, but extremely long, and by the end, the reader is more than ready for it to be over. And like many contemporary thrillers, at times Long has written this one like it’s all but ready to become a screenplay.

Spoilers follow — beware!

Brief plot summary: The world discovers that there is a vast network of deep underground caves and that a primitive, vicious race of near-humans has been inhabiting those spaces since the dawn of time, periodically venturing to the surface to steal slaves and loot. Not a bad premise, eh? It’s pretty darn good, actually, but it does jump the shark when Long throws in the fact that these underground dwellers (called “hadals”) are led by a seemingly immortal leader who is the historical inspiration for Satan. Yep. Satan. It works, barely, and after a fashion, but I’d really like to have seen that whole bit excised. Religious undertones and themes in thrillers are just fine by me, but they have to be done well, and this one triggers my suspension of disbelief just a bit much. The final two-thirds of the book is taken up with an evil corporation’s expedition to map the cave network, bringing along various scientists, soldiers, and a linguist nun (Long tries to introduce quasi-religious elements whenever possible, and they just don’t always work).

I’m always reluctant to criticize an author for what he didn’t do, but frankly, Long doesn’t go for at least one obvious plotline that he probably should have: the brief period of open warfare between the hadals and the world’s militaries. That all happens off-screen — with the slaughter of literally millions of humans and hadals — which is extremely annoying. That could have filled a significant portion of the book, and might have been more entertaining than what he did present. More military science fiction and less stereotypical corporate greed and Satan-hunting might have been just what the doctor ordered.

There is a sequel to Descent (entitled Deeper), and I’m really of mixed minds about whether to continue with what has become a series. If I do pick up the sequel, it’s probably not going to be right away or for full price. I give it 3 stars out of 5, and offer a weak recommendation for this title if you enjoy thrillers.

Review copyright 2010 J. Andrew Byers