Six Days of the Condor ★★★✬☆

 

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Title: Six Days of the Condor
Series: ----------
Authors: James Grady
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 159
Words: 56K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia.org

Ronald Malcolm is a CIA employee who works in a clandestine operations office in Washington, D.C. responsible for analyzing the plots of mystery and spy novels. One day, when he should be in the office, Malcolm slips out a basement entrance for lunch. In his absence a group of armed men gain entrance to the office and kill everyone there. Malcolm returns, realizes he is in grave danger, and telephones a phone number at CIA headquarters he has been given for emergencies.

When he phones in (and remembers to give his code name "Condor"), he is told to meet an agent named Weatherby who will "bring him in" for protection. However, Weatherby is part of a rogue group within the CIA, the same group responsible for the original assassinations. Weatherby tries to kill Malcolm, who manages to escape. On the run, Malcolm uses his wits to elude both the rogue CIA group and the proper CIA authorities, both of which have a vested interest in his capture or death.

Seeking shelter, Malcolm kidnaps a paralegal named Wendy Ross whom he overhears saying she will spend her coming vacation days holed up in her apartment. Knowing no one will notice her absence, Malcolm enlists her aid in finding out more about the forces after him. She is shot and seriously wounded in the process, but survives.

It is then revealed that the rogue group was using the section where Malcolm works to import illegal drugs from Laos. A supervisor stumbled onto a discrepancy in the records exposing this operation, thus necessitating the section's elimination.

Everything works out in the end and the badguys all get theirs and Malcom gets the girl.

My Thoughts:

I have seen the movie, 3 Days of the Condor starring Robert Redford, several times but had never read the book. So when Dix reviewed the movie a couple of months ago and we got talking about the book in the comments it seemed like the moment was right to hunt down a copy for myself and read it.

There is a reason the movie is better known than the book. My first clue was that the introduction by the author was almost 15% of the book. He kept talking and talking and it was more of a mini-autobiography than a simple introduction. It wasn't bad, but it was NOT what I was expecting.

Once we get to the actual story, it was very similar to the movie. One of the days is spent with Ronald being sick with the flu. You can see why that day got axed from the movie. Then there is Ronald's obsession with big breasted women. He's a guy so I completely understand, but I don't particularly need to know that Ronald gets to work on time every day just so he can watch a girl walk to work and comment on her sartorial choices. Plus, the girl he hooks up with to stay under cover is apparently a horny nympho and jumps his bones every chance she gets. Eye roll.

You can tell this was dated and written by an amateur. In one of the chapters Ronald is supposed to meet up with somebody he knows to bring him in. The traitor gets involved and Ronald shoots the traitor in the leg with a 357magnum and the traitor shoots the guy Ronald trusts in a bid to make it look like Ronald is the traitor. Now, he does that with a 22 pistol. And it takes almost until the end of the book for the forensics guys to figure this out. For feth's sake!

The one thing that I did like about this better than the movie was how the good guys win. In the movie the Condor is pretty much told that he's powerless against the Machine and it doesn't matter what he does because he'll just be ignored or ground up. In the book the traitors are caught and killed.

Overall, I'm glad I read this but if someone were to ask me whether they should read the book or watch the movie, I'm going to go for the movie. It is just a better, tighter story.

★★★✬☆

Act of Treason ★★★☆☆

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Act of Treason
Series: Mitch Rapp #7
Author: Vince Flynn
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 348
Words: 116K

Synopsis:

From the Publisher

Fallout from a horrific Washington explosion has just begun -- and so has CIA superagent Mitch Rapp's hunt for a killer with a personal agenda.

In the final weeks of a fierce presidential campaign, a motorcade carrying candidate Josh Alexander is shattered by a car bomb. Soon after the attack, Alexander is carried to victory by a sympathy vote, but his assailants have not been found.

When CIA director Irene Kennedy and Special Agent Skip McMahon receive damaging intelligence on Washington's most powerful players, they call on Mitch Rapp -- the one man reckless enough to unravel a global network of contract killers on an explosive mission that leads back to the heart of our nation's capital...and the inner sanctum of the Oval Office.

My Thoughts:

After the last book, Consent to Kill, where I rage quit because the author took the easy way out and killed off Rapp's wife and unborn child, I needed a time out with this series. A couple of months seemed long enough and so I dived back in, not sure what to expect.

Thankfully, I didn't get Rapp immediately jumping into bed with either a femme fatale or a dusky heroine. The romance was nil and Rapp is shown to be pretty unstable. He's still able to perform his job but he's starting to age (I believe he's 39 in this book) and he's simply in denial about the tragedy.

I thought Flynn did an excellent job of showing a man who is cracking up. I really feel like killing of Rapp's wife and baby was a mistake by Flynn, as I was looking forward to how he was going to balance the whole “killing machine vs family man” dynamic he had going. This book, while not redeeming that, at least didn't make it greater by having Rapp turn into the stereotypical action/adventure character of a bedhopping manwhore.

★★★☆☆

• All My “Mitch Rapp” Reviews

Spellbinders in Suspense ★★★★☆

 

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Title: Spellbinders in Suspense
Series: ----------
Author: Alfred Hitchcock (Editor)
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 215
Words: 77K

Synopsis:

From the Inside Cover

These are mystery-suspense stories. Some will keep you on the edge of your chair with excitement. Others are calculated to draw you along irresistibly to see how the puzzle works out. I have even included a sample or two of stories that are humorous, to show you that humor and mystery can also add up to suspense. So here you are, with best wishes for hours of good reading. --Alfred Hitchcock

Includes the following 13 stories:

The Chinese Puzzle Box - Agatha Christie

The Most Dangerous Game - Richard Connell

The Birds - Daphne du Maurier

Puzzle For Poppy - Patrick Quentin

Eyewitness - Robert Arthur

Man From The South - Roald Dahl

Black Magic - Sax Rohmer

Treasure Trove - F. Tennyson Jesse

Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper - Robert Bloch

The Treasure Hunt - Edgar Wallace

The Man Who Knew How - Dorothy L. Sayers

The Dilemma of Grampa DuBois - Clayre and Michel Lipman

P. Moran, Diamond-Hunter - Percival Wilde

My Thoughts:

I must have read this back in the day because I recognized over 3/4's of the stories. Now, some of them have been in other anthologies so that would account for some of them, but not the number I remembered. I'd start reading and then it would be “Ohhhhh, I remember how THIS story ends”, etc, etc. I am very sure this is the collection where I was introduced to the Most Dangerous Game (in short story form), The Birds and The Man Who Knew How.

I still labeled this as crime fiction, because it has aspects of criminality involved, but unlike some of Hitchcock's other collections, this doesn't focus nearly so much on that. I wasn't sure what else to label it as, so inertia won out :-)

While this was not as thrilling or exciting as some of the others, I'd choose this one collection if I had to recommend one so far. With the authors and stories involved, it gives a very broad collection upon which to build a good literary foundation, even for a Hitchcock book. Let me put it another way. The first story was a Poirot story and while I HATE Poirot with a passion, I still went on and read the entire book. I don't know what higher praise I could give.

Oh wait.

If you read this book:

• You will win the lottery

• Your hair will be the style you always wanted but couldn't get because of Nature

• You will be at your ideal weight

• People of the opposite gender, complete strangers, will come up to you and tell you how amazing you are and how they wished they knew you better

• Hollywood will pay you 100 million dollars to make a movie about your life, starring your choice of actor to play you

• You will get a magic fridge that is always full of just what you want to eat, AT THAT MOMENT!

If none of that appeals to you, then you shouldn't read this book. I'm actually writing this post on my new Lear Jet while on my way to check out locations in the Bahamas for the movie “The Bookstooge Chronicles”. And I'm drinking a Pina Colada Bang. That I just took out of my magic fridge.

'nuff said.

★★★★☆

• All of My “Alfred Hitchcock” Reviews

The Future is Yours ★✬☆☆☆

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Future is Yours
Series: ---------
Authors: Dan Frey
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF Thriller
Pages: 226
Words: 69K

Synopsis:

From the Publisher

If you had the chance to look one year into the future, would you?

For Ben Boyce and Adhi Chaudry, the answer is unequivocally yes. And they’re betting everything that you’ll say yes, too. Welcome to The Future: a computer that connects to the internet one year from now, so you can see who you’ll be dating, where you’ll be working, even whether or not you’ll be alive in the year to come. By forming a startup to deliver this revolutionary technology to the world, Ben and Adhi have made their wildest, most impossible dream a reality. Once Silicon Valley outsiders, they’re now its hottest commodity.

The device can predict everything perfectly—from stock market spikes and sports scores to political scandals and corporate takeovers—allowing them to chase down success and fame while staying one step ahead of the competition. But the future their device foretells is not the bright one they imagined.

Ambition. Greed. Jealousy. And, perhaps, an apocalypse. The question is . . . can they stop it?

Told through emails, texts, transcripts, and blog posts, this bleeding-edge tech thriller chronicles the costs of innovation and asks how far you’d go to protect the ones you love—even from themselves.

My Thoughts:

I have seen the future. And it is narcissistic jackasses and emotionally stunted losers. This book was pushing the DNF line almost the entire time and I ended up reading it in one sitting so that I wouldn't DNF it. Why didn't I DNF it? Because I wanted to see the ending. And then I regretted that decision when I got there.

Both Ben and Adhi disgusted me to the core of my being. They adequately represented everything that I think is wrong in the world today and it was not one bit entertaining or fun to read about them. Personally, a good old fashioned apocalypse that killed them both, and millions and possibly billions like them, would be an acceptable solution to me. As characters they disgusted me that much. Not one shred of moral fibre was shown, not one tiny bit of backbone was revealed and Principles were jettisoned from the get-go. I actively disliked them the entire book. Even the ending where Adhi shows Ben a solution is so like him, he shoves all the responsibility onto Ben and it's pretty obvious from Ben's behavior in “the past” (which is the future) that we all know that the loop will continue. It was enough to make me want to use some profanity and tell them both to grow up and simply make ONE responsible decision in their entire lives.

The fact that Frey writes characters like these is reason enough for me to add him to my Authors to Avoid list. I don't want to spend time reading the words of somebody who can think this qualifies as entertainment. I'll give up fiction reading altogether before accepting something like that.

Read at your own risk.

★✬☆☆☆

Breakout ★★✬☆☆

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Breakout
Series: ----------
Author: Paul Herron
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 237
Words: 88.5K

Synopsis:

Publisher's Blurb

Hurricane Anna: a superstorm made up of two Category 5 hurricanes coming together to wreak unprecedented havoc along the eastern seaboard.

When the superstorm hits, the correctional officers at Ravenhill flee, opening all the cell doors and leaving the inmates to fend for themselves as the floodwaters rise. But Jack Constantine, an ex-cop serving ten years for killing one of his wife's murderers, isn't going to just lay down and die. Not when his wife's two remaining killers are among the prisoners relocated to the Glasshouse to ride out the storm.

Meanwhile,

Kiera Sawyer, a Correctional Officer on her first day at work is the only officer left behind when the others flee. Sawyer rescues Jack and offers to team up. If they can make it to the Glasshouse they might just survive the hurricane. But that involves making their way through the prison, fighting off eight hundred blood-crazed inmates as the building fills with water and the wall crumble all around them

My Thoughts:

I have to admit, when I was done reading this I was left disappointed. For a slightly more positive review, check out Mogsy's Review from earlier this year.

This was a big action'y story with tons of tension and drama. I didn't find the two main characters quite up to snuff though. Jack is a tortured ex-cop ex-military, who didn't hear a bloody thing when his wife was killed. Wouldn't want him on guard duty! And for an ex-military guy, forgetting that the prison had an armory was just unforgivable. I don't expect all military characters in books to be Special Forces level, but come on, weapons?!? Then we come to Lady Guard Sawyer. She's an attractive female guard in an all male prison, most of whom are in for a VERY long time. And they pretty much leave her alone when all hell breaks loose and everyone is free. Now, if she had been raped, I probably would have dnf'd the book, so I appreciate that. But at the same time, outside of one token badguy doing some vaguely nebulous “a wimminz” thought, there was nothing. It rang as false as a wooden nickle.

A decent read but nothing more. I won't be reading anything else by Herron on purpose.

★★✬☆☆

Memorial Day (Mitch Rapp #5) ★★★✬☆

 

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Title: Memorial Day
Series: Mitch Rapp #5
Author: Vince Flynn
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 450
Words: 137.5K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia & Me

Intelligence gathering has indicated unusual activity in financial markets, and Rapp, back in the field after a long stint on desk duty for insubordination, unearths a bomb plot during a daring commando raid on an al-Qaeda stronghold in Afghanistan. A decision is made for the President and his cabinet to leave Washington, D.C. in early morning hours based on the bomb threat. However a United States strike force manages to intercept and disarm the nuclear weapon moments after it arrives by freighter in Charleston, South Carolina. Everyone, including series stalwart President Robert Hayes, congratulates themselves on a job well done, but Rapp is not convinced; he believes al-Qaeda leader Mustafa al-Yamani has smuggled a second nuclear weapon into the country and plans to detonate it in Washington, D.C., during Memorial Day celebrations.

Rapp, a ruthless terrorist pursuer by temperament and training, turns it up several notches this time around, following al-Yamani's scent with feverish abandon. When a missing Pakistani nuclear scientist is found to have passed through LAX on his way to Atlanta, and a truck driver turns up dead due to radiation sickness, the chase is on again. Ultimately the terrorists approach Washington D.C. by water, are spotted from the air, and killed by Rapp. The second bomb, however, has been activated and is in its countdown, unable to be deactivated. After an assessment of options, Rapp transports the bomb to a secure underground facility where it explodes with minimal human or environmental affect.

My Thoughts:

Oh man, I love a good “nuke loose in the United States” thriller story. It sends a frisson down my spine to even contemplate such a thing in reality, but in a book, I can handle it and it really amps up a story, that's for sure.

I found that Flynn's way of handling Rapp, now stuck between being a desk jockey and wanting to be a Field Operative, was handled well. For the most part Rapp doesn't go cowboy'ing it and laying the smackdown on the terrorists. That job is mostly left to the other Special Forces. Rapp does get into the thick of things near the end when they are chasing down the remaining nuke and have to find a safe place to let it go off.

Mrs Mitch Rapp is out of the story, as she's at her family's cabin on the lake for the Memorial Day Weekend. Kind of sneaky of Flynn to get around the issue that way but it works for this book and I know Flynn isn't ignoring the overall situation of the Rapp's as a couple. I'm sure the nitty-gritty of their relationship will pop up once again.

On an aesthetic note, the cover I chose was the only one that was even half-way “actiony”. Every single other one was boring, political logo branding. I have no idea why the covers are made that way. While not The Executioner, they should have an appropriately cool military/assassin/spy cover. Give me goodguys with guns or badguys with bombs. Or planes, trains and automobiles. Just something besides the generic “looks like a folder on the desk of a bureaucrat” that I've seen.

★★★✬☆

• Transfer of Power (Book 1)

• The Third Option (Book 2)

• Separation of Power (Book 3)

• Executive Power (Book 4)

Fallout ★★★✬☆

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Fallout
Series: ----------
Author: Kenneth Royce
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 285
Words: 92.5K

Synopsis:

In the aftermath of Chernobyl, a patient escapes from a Soviet mental hospital. As he wanders through a blighted landscape struggling to recapture blocked memories, British Intelligence and the KGB hunt him for the secret he holds--a secret that threatens glasnost itself.

Zotov, with the help of a former lover and 2 English controlled spies, escapes and makes it to England. Where the doctors do the exact same thing to him that the Soviet doctors did. He goes crazy and kills himself.

The End.

My Thoughts:

Despite the ending, I enjoyed this book. I think part of it was that Royce was showing a literati's disdain for The Government (whichever one you might choose to think about) and also a disillusionment about the Cold War. When Titans collide, the little man is the one getting squished, no matter which Titan is right or wrong.

The only other Spy novels of this era that I have read are the Jason Bourne books by Ludlum. In fact, as soon as it was revealed that Zotov, the main russian character, had amnesia, I immediately thought “Bourne Identity”. Thankfully, this was quite a different story, but the atmospheric tension of not knowing what was going on was exactly the same. Cold War Thrillers have the same flavor I think. Just like Cozy Mysteries I think.

The tension is always high. The action is very sparse and while not non-existent, isn't the point of the book like a James Bond book. Political maneuverings are as important, externally and internally. In fact, Zotov wouldn't have been able to escape if it weren't for the political infighting going on in the Soviet Union during this book. As much time is given to this political side of things as to anything else. Probably more of interest to those interested in history at this point.

While I did enjoy this, I don't know if I enjoyed it as much as Jenn did. Please check out her review for a slightly more enthusiastic take on this book.

★★★✬☆

Cold Fire ★☆☆☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Cold Fire
Series: ----------
Author: Dean Koontz
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 495
Words: 134K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia

Recently retired teacher Jim Ironheart (aptly named) risks his life to save lives. In Portland he saves a young boy from an oblivious drunk driver in a van. In Boston he rescues a child from an underground explosion. In Houston he disarms a man who was trying to shoot his own wife – and he is not just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. He gets “inspirations” and knows he must hurry to wherever prompted. He rushes off to hail a cab or catch a plane, dropping whatever he’s doing at the moment, much to the surprise of those around him. He has no idea where these visions come from or why, but he believes that he must be some sort of God-sent guardian angel with a heavenly gift.

Reporter Holly Thorne was in Portland to write a less than exciting piece on a school teacher who has recently published a book of poetry full of poems which Holly finds are pure transcendental garbage – but such is Holly’s lot in life. She is a fine writer but is failing at her job because she is filled with too much integrity and compassion to be a good reporter. As she is leaving she witnesses Jim rescuing the child from the drunk driver and felt there was something fishy in Jim’s explanations of how he started running for the child before seeing or hearing the van coming. She discovers there have been 12 last-minute rescues reported over the last three months in other newspapers by a mysterious Good Samaritan named Jim with blue eyes.

Holly is intrigued by Jim and his intense but cold blue eyes – eyes which burn with a passionate, cold fire, hence the novel’s title.

Holly decides to follow this humble yet elusive savior on his next “mission.” Unbeknownst to Jim, she rapidly follows him to the airport and boards a United Airlines DC-10 plane bound for Chicago. She decides to confront him and learns about Jim’s strange but extraordinary powers. Jim tells her that he has been sent by God to save a mother and a child on the plane – he does not know why God has chosen these two in particular, but he does know that they must change seats or they will die in the horrific plane crash about which he has been sent a vision. Holly is struck by Jim’s belief that he has some magical power, sent by God no less.

Holly takes a more cynical view on things and decidedly argues how ridiculous such thoughts are. She questions why “God” would choose to let these two people live, and allow 151 other passengers to die, as Jim has foreseen. Surely there are much more worthy people aboard, and why would God even have the plane crash at all? Holly presses Jim to do much more than just tell the couple to move, but that he should warn the pilot and maybe save everyone aboard. Jim initially refuses, and decidedly refuses to question his visions. He tells Holly simply that God sends him, and he only follows the instructions – to do anything beyond that would be to somehow go outside God’s will. Who else, he asks, could be sending him visions to save lives precisely at the right time? Holly reasons with him, and convinces him that there is no good reason for Jim (or God) to let anyone die needlessly. The plane, however, is damaged beyond saving and still crashes, but the number of fatalities reduces from 151 to 47.

After the crash, Holly manages to gain Jim’s confidence. They are attracted to each other, but Holly cannot help but be curious about Jim’s mysterious visions. She decides to discover exactly how, why, and who, just as any reporter would naturally want to know. Yet the more she pries, the stranger things get. Nearly all Jim’s childhood memories are completely missing, except that he knows his parents died when he was 9 at his grandparents’ ranch. He only knows very vague details about everything from his childhood, and gets angry when Holly questions him. She begins to see that his strange abilities are linked to his childhood and lack of memories from then. She hears him whisper in his sleep continuously for several nights, “There is an Enemy. It is coming. It’ll kill us all. It is relentless.” She and Jim start to have identical terrifying nightmares surrounding the old mill from his grandparents’ ranch, and during one of these “nightmares” they are both completely conscious and experience violence while fighting some eerie force coming at them from the walls and ceiling – needless to say, they are convinced the force behind it all is definitely not God, nor is it benign.

Holly unquestionably decides they must go back to the ranch to find the source of everything, though she is fearful of what they will find. Jim is at first reluctant, but as they near the ranch, he becomes more and more convinced that the being is something wholly great and powerful – something not of this world.

Once inside the windmill’s creepy tower room, the alien reveals itself from the adjacent pond, at first through sounds analogous to church bells and then an entrancing display of dancing colors and exploding lights. The being then starts to magically use a pen and paper to make words appear, and later manifests as a voice. It calls itself THE FRIEND who has come to them from ANOTHER WORLD. When asked why, it says, “TO OBSERVE, TO STUDY, TO HELP MANKIND.” Holly asks why, then, it attacked them the previous night, to which THE FRIEND replies that that was the work of its other half: THE ENEMY. When asked about the bells and lights, it says that it does that “FOR DRAMA?” Holly asks why the certain individuals are chosen over others, and THE FRIEND gives replies that one will cure all cancers, one will become a great president, one will become a great spiritual leader, et cetera. While Jim is wholly enthusiastic and pleased, Holly cannot believe the answers, for it does not make any logical sense and the answers seem trite, fantastical and childish to her.

Holly questions THE FRIEND far and deep about Jim while he is out of the room. All the answers continue to be too predictable to believe, and it finally answers her nagging with threats and then, most shockingly, with the words “I,” “MY,” and, “ME.” At that moment, it is discovered that Jim is actually himself the source of both THE FRIEND and THE ENEMY, that it is he who is causing the nightmares and not God or some alien force. After Jim’s parents died, the 9 year old became obsessed with a book about an alien in a pond next to a windmill – he became so obsessed that the child never grew up until one day an adult-in-body Jim ran away and started a presumably normal life. Holly helps Jim deal with his past and the two begin a new life together.

My Thoughts:

If Koontz had stuck to this being his typical thriller, I'd probably have given it 3.5 stars and seriously thought about upping it to 4.

However. There was this quote and several in the same vein:

“If there's a God, why does He allow suffering?”
Alarmed, Father Geary said, “Are you feeling worse?”
“No, no. Better. I don't mean my suffering. Just… why does He allow suffering in general?”
“To test us,” the priest said.
“Why do we have to be tested?”
“To determine if we're worthy.”
“Worthy of what?”
“Worthy of heaven, of course. Salvation. Eternal life.”
“Why didn't God make us worthy?”
“Yes, he made us perfect, without sin. But then we sinned, and fell from grace.”
“How could we sin if we were perfect?”
“Because we have free will.”
“I don't understand.”
Father Geary frowned. “I'm not a nimble theologian. Just an ordinary priest. All I can tell you is that it's part of the divine mystery. We fell from grace, and now heaven must be earned.”

The bolding is mine. Besides this blatant heresy, Koontz makes sure that his readers know that the main character not only studied a variety of religions, but WAS an “X” and believed in them all. A Super Ecumenist as it were.

It has never been clearer that Koontz is not a Christian even while using Christian terminology when it suits him. You don't get to try to take the benefits of using Christian terminology while denying the strictures. You do not play games with Christ. As such, I'm done with Koontz now.

★☆☆☆☆

• All of My "Dean Koontz" Reviews

Mr Murder ★★★★☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Mr Murder
Series: ----------
Author: Dean Koontz
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 500
Words: 141K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia

Bestselling mystery writer Marty Stillwater was recording himself one day when he realized that he was saying "I need..." repeatedly. When he rewound the recording he found that he had been unconsciously repeating "I need" for over 7 minutes. Marty was tense that whole day, when he put the kids to bed though he calmed down considerably and was finally consoled.

Meanwhile, the Killer is roaming the streets before his job. He goes into a bar and leaves with a prostitute to go to a motel. He has sex with her and then murders her because she cannot assuage his frustration. He proceeds to kill his targets and returns to his hotel. That night, still restless, he is drawn for some reason towardsTopeka. Suddenly, he starts saying:

"I need... to be... I need to be... I need to be..." As the suburbs and finally the dark prairie flash past on both sides, excitement builds steadily in him. He trembles on the brink of an insight that, he senses, will change his life. "I need to be... to be... I need to be someone." At once he understands the meaning of what he has said. By "to be someone," he does not mean what another man might intend to say with those same three words; he does not mean that he needs to be someone famous or rich or important. Just someone. Someone with a real name. Just an ordinary Joe, as they used to say in the movies of the forties.

— Mr. Murder page 48-49

The Killer is attracted like a magnet by some force he doesn't understand to the Stillwater residence. On his way he kills several people; an old couple for a set of clothes and a gas station clerk to steal food and money. When he breaks into the Stillwater house he sees a picture of Marty and believes it to be himself. He observes books authored by Marty and decides they are his. He sees the pictures of the daughters Emily and Charlotte and Marty's wife Paige, he then decides he wants to be the father and husband. He attempts to write a book but cannot and in his frustration he destroys the computer.

Marty was quite upset about his fugues (a break in one's memory) and so went to see a doctor. The doctor attributed it to stress.

When Marty comes home he finds things misplaced and his computer smashed. The Other then enters and accuses him of being an impostor. He menaces Marty who shoots him twice in the chest, but the Other is unfazed. The fight catapults them over the banisters leaving the Other seriously injured but he gets away. Marty's family returns home, and Marty sends them to their neighbour's house. Soon after, the police arrive. Cyrus Lowbock, the detective, interrogates Marty and doesn't believe his story, insinuating it is a publicity stunt. Marty and his wife refuse to cooperate and the police leave.

The Other's body has rapidly recovered from his injuries but the effort leaves him ravenous. After consuming massive amounts of food he returns to get Paige and the girls back from Marty who he believes has stolen them. He manages to get the daughters from the neighbour's house, but Marty sees him and gives chase. The car crashes and the girls escape but the Killer flees again.

Drew Oslett and Karl Clocker, two operatives of a clandestine government agency are sent to retrieve the Killer (referred to as "Alfie") They discover the bodies of the two seniors and Alfie's tracking device. A message from their agency leads them toward the People magazine article on Marty Stillwater and they discover his connection with the Killer. They meet a contact who might help them find Alfie. To maintain their cover they decide the Stillwaters have to be terminated to look like a murder/suicide and Alfie has to be brought in.

Meanwhile, the Stillwaters flee to a cabin in Mammoth Lakes and prepare to defend themselves against attack by The Other. Paige hides under a rock to ambush The Other, but unpredictably he rams his car through the cabin. The Stillwaters then flee to an abandoned church. Here Marty is shot and Paige and the girls are trapped. As The Other prepares to kill them, Drew and Karl track him down. Drew kills The Other and is then killed by Karl who has turned against the agency. He rescues the Stillwaters, provides them with new identities, a new home and evidence to bring the agency down. He explains that cloning and genetic engineering were used to create a breed of elite assassins, with Marty's tissue samples accidentally becoming involved in creating Alfie. After a few months Marty mails the evidence to the authorities from an anonymous name and the Stillwaters begin their new lives.

My Thoughts:

This is what I was hoping for from Koontz. Pure thriller through and through. I was thinking, when I reached the end, if I enjoyed this or Lightning more. It's a real tossup and I would recommend either one if you wanted to dip your toes into the Koontz ocean (seriously, this guy has written a bajillion books).

In terms of tension, Koontz did an admirable job of keeping me in suspense even while staying true to his trademark “The Hero Doesn't Die” platform. I figured the wife and kids were safe as well, but when the girls are kidnapped, I wondered if all bets were off. Thankfully, they were ok. Marty's parents (Marty being the main character) however, were pure cannon fodder and I almost wished they'd been off'ed nearer the beginning rather in the last 10% so as to provide even more tension about the wife and kids.

I've got a quote or two I'm including in this review instead of doing them as separate posts (Gulag is taking up the Quote posts for the whole month, the greedy hog!)

“Standing in his kitchen, holding the loaded Beretta, Marty knew that he and Paige now constituted their own last line of defense.

No one else. No greater authority. No guardian of the public welfare.”

~ Page 248

“She wondered what it was about storytelling that made people want it almost as much as food and water, even more so in bad times than in good.”

~ Page 320

The first quote made me think about the Law and the police, as the embodiment of the Law. The Law does not PREVENT crime from happening. Nor should it. The Law states “X is the Law and if you break the Law you will be punished”. Cops are meant to be an “after the fact” part of the Law. They find and arrest the perpetrators. They don't sit outside a private citizens house and prevent it from being burgled, that is the responsibility of the home owner. However, that is not the reality of life today. The majority of my fellow countrymen have given up their responsibility to take care of themselves and handed that off to the government. The inevitable outcome of THAT is always tyranny. Just look at how the Governor of the State of New York has acted during this covid19 outbreak to see tyranny in action.

The second quote, and its attendant idea, was much more pleasant to contemplate, thankfully. Koontz, being a writer, talks up storytelling as much as he can. He touches on the idea of stories being an escape but also states he thinks it goes deeper than that; that the need for a story is built into us, like God put it in from the beginning.

So to end this, I thoroughly enjoyed this tense thriller even while knowing the protagonist was going to be ok. That is the kind of story Koontz tells and it is the kind of story I like to read. The Good Guys Win, the Bad Guys Defeated, Evil Vanquished.

★★★★☆

• All of My "Dean Koontz" Reviews

Zero Sum Game (Cas Russell #1) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Zero Sum Game
Series: Cas Russell #1
Author: Lisa Huang
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 397
Words: 108K

Synopsis:

From SLHuang.com & Me

Cas Russell is good at math. Scary good. The vector calculus blazing through her head lets her smash through armed men twice her size and dodge every bullet in a gunfight, and she’ll take any job for the right price.

As far as Cas knows, she’s the only person around with a superpower…until she discovers someone with a power even more dangerous than her own. Someone who can reach directly into people’s minds and twist their brains into Moebius strips. Someone intent on becoming the world’s puppet master.

Cas should run, like she usually does, but for once she’s involved. There’s only one problem…

She doesn’t know which of her thoughts are her own anymore.

Cas is hired to rescue a drug mule by her older sister Dawna. Once she rescues Jill, she realizes she's been conned but can't figure out why or even how. Her friend Rio, a sociopath who has turned his violent tendencies against sinners, tells her to not get involved. So of course Cas goes digging and finds the name Pithica. This gets her Information Broker and his 8 year old daughter killed and brings Cas into conflict with a Private Investigator who is tracking Jill down for murdering his clients husband.

Eventually Cas hooks up with the cop, Arthur, and they begin to realize there is an actual worldwide conspiracy headed by a group of people who can effectively read minds and brainwash anyone they want. Their goal is to reduce the overall misery in the world even if they have to take away peoples' free will.

Cas, Arthur, and a reluctant Rio, team up and plot and scheme and eventually cut off the financial steams feeding Pithica. They attempt to trap and kill Dawna, as she is one of the Elite mind changers but it is only with Rio's help that they make it out alive. But not unscathed. Dawna has brainwashed them into never going after Pithica again.

Cas realizes her own powers might have sprung from the same pit as Dawna's (gene therapy, secret labs, all the usual schlock like that) but gets it all erased at the end. She hooks up with Arthur to help with his PI business.

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed the story line for the most part. However, Cass is a filthy mouth jackass and her potty mouth near the beginning of the book almost had me put it down. Also Rio and his “I'm a sociopathic killer with no emotions but I'm going to use the Bible as my moral compass but I'm damned anyway but I'm going to kill badguys anyway for God” schtick was beyond messed up. It made zero sense to me. No, I take that back. It made perfect sense if you don't believe in an actual God but believe the Bible is a set of rules and nothing more.

The action was pretty good. Lots of fighting, gun battles, grenades, etc. Cas and her mathamagic made for some great scenes and in some ways reminded me of the Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downey Jr, where he posits what is going to happen in the near future based on Action X that he takes now. No complaints whatsoever in that department.

The thriller aspect was just as well done. I didn't even try to figure anything out (I almost never do anyway in these types of books, I'm just not wired that way) but sat back and let Huang tell her story at her own pace. It kept my attention the whole time, the tension factor was just right and I never wished the story “was over already”.

That being said, I don't plan on reading any more in this series. Cas's profanity and Rio (who is supposed to be a paragon of reasoning power) and his ethos, are not things I want to subject myself to any further.

For an alternate review that is a bit more enthusiastic, I'd recommend checking out The Irresponsible Reader's Review from '18.

★★★☆☆

Lightning ★★★★☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Lightning
Series: ----------
Author: Dean Koontz
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 533
Words: 145K

Synopsis:

Wikipedia and Me

As Laura Shane is born in January 1955, during a freak lightning storm, a mysterious blond stranger (Stefan) prevents a drunken Dr. Paul Markwell from attending to the difficult and complicated delivery. Her mother dies in childbirth, though Laura is a perfectly healthy, exceptionally beautiful baby, and she is left to be raised by her father Bob Shane. When Laura is eight years old, a junkie attempts to rob her father's convenience store; however the blond stranger reappears, saving them both and instructing them on what to tell the police. In 1967, Bob Shane dies of a heart attack. At her father’s funeral Laura sees the stranger watching over her yet again and begins to think he is her guardian angel, along with an unnamed man calling for her when she tries to follow him.

Laura is sent to live in the McIlroy orphanage, where she is housed with a set of twins, Thelma and Ruth, who later become her best friends. She also meets Willy Sheener, a frightening child molester who is also the maintenance man and custodian. Willy becomes infatuated with Laura due to her uncommonly good looks, haunting her wherever she goes in the orphanage. However, due to past experience the twins warn Laura that reporting Sheener, also known as "The White Eel" or "Eel" for short, will do more harm than good. Laura is eventually sent to live with a foster family that exploits her, so she purposely behaves badly and they send her back to the orphanage. After several disturbing incidents, her mysterious angel visits Sheener and brutally beats him. This scares him off for some time, until Laura is sent to live with the Dockwielers, with whom she quickly forms a bond. Sheener comes to their home one afternoon; Laura is able to fend him off and eventually kill him, but the shock of discovering the scene causes her new foster mother to suffer a fatal heart attack, sending Laura back to the orphanage. Shortly thereafter, Laura turns 13 and is moved to another orphanage for older children, and receives the devastating news that Ruth was caught in a fire in McIlroy and died.

At college, Laura's creative writing brings her to the attention of Danny, a naive man who has fallen in love with her from afar. After a botched attempt at being her secret admirer they agree to date and over time, fall in love. After their marriage Laura becomes a celebrated author of several books and gives birth to a boy, Christopher Robert. The birth was difficult, making it so she will not be able to have any children in the future.

Years later, Danny, Laura and Chris are saved from a horrific accident by the blond man's (revealed to be named Stefan) intervention. The unnamed man shows up moments later. Both Danny and the blond man attack but Danny dies of several gunshot wounds, before Stefan kills the man and tells Laura what to say, like years ago at the grocery store. He promises to return soon and tell more, but due to mistakes, he doesn't return until a year later, wounded, in an isolated stretch of winter woods. Laura and Chris are able to treat him at a doctor they locate in the phone book, but must battle unknown assassins shortly thereafter.

The group hides out in a small motel. Stefan recovers and finally tells his story. He was born in 1909, making him 35 years old. He is from Nazi Germany in the year 1944, and is part of secret time traveling experiments, sending agents to the future to uncover ways to change the outcome of World War II. Stefan had previously arrived in an alternate version of 1984 and had seen Laura, who was a quadriplegic because of Dr. Markwell's drunken errors during her delivery. However, despite her disability, she wrote beautiful books of poetry which inspired Stefan to renounce his mission, and travel to difficult parts of her life to change them. However, his superior Kokoschka became suspicious of him and followed him, sending the assassins into the future to learn of their path.

With the help of Thelma, who has become rich as a comedienne and actress since her sister's death, they gain many supplies they need. Fat Jack, an arms dealer, supplies them with guns and Vexxon nerve gas. With the aid of modern computational technology, Stefan is prepared to go back to his time. He uses the nerve gas to kill the five men on duty at the time and disposes their bodies six billion years in the future. He makes a jump to see Winston Churchill and convinces him that the institute containing the time machine must be bombed; Churchill agrees. Stefan also makes a trip to Adolf Hitler, to convince the dictator of various threads that must be cleared up, in reality sabotaging the German war effort.

While he is gone, Laura and Chris, in an empty patch of rain washed desert, are attacked by more Nazis, as records of a police stop have been discovered. Stefan returns to find Laura and Chris dead. He works around the time limit of the machine by sending Laura a message to save them. Despite this, Chris and Laura still have to battle all four men themselves. The second cylinder of nerve gas proves invaluable. It is Laura who eventually kills all four men pursuing them, as she protects Chris as best she can. In the long months that follow, Laura and Chris are questioned by the police. They soon believe a story of 'drug dealers' who wanted revenge. Laura backs up her story by turning over Fat Jack, something she was going to do anyway (he does not blame her, due to his personal beliefs). Stefan, who had been hiding with Thelma, comes to live with the two again. After even more time, Laura finds herself falling in love with him.

The book ends with Stefan realizing that a throw-away comment he made to Winston Churchill had lead to the downfall of the Soviet Union in this world and that this is now the “real world”, the World That Was Meant To Be.

My Thoughts:

This book was published in 1988 and the Terminator movie was released in 1984. Considering my thoughts about Koontz and the Terminator franchise in my Hell's Gate Review I've realized that the idea comes from Koontz first, and it is also something he simply cannot “not” write about. Every story he writes usually has some sort of either time traveling or alternate reality traveling.

I think this was my most enjoyable Koontz so far, beyond Odd Thomas of course. This was also one of his longest books yet. Like I said in my Quote post, this felt like Koontz was at the top of his game when he was writing this. With this being slightly longer than his normal book, Koontz doesn't have to rush the ending, which is one flaw of his that he doesn't seem to see as a flaw in most of his books. I was thankful for that, as it made finishing the book more enjoyable.

Now, while I enjoyed this a lot, there was some subject matter that needs to be talked about, as it could be a real problem for people. Laura was “fated” to either be crippled or raped as a child. There are two times where she is almost child raped but her protector Stefan steps in and keeps it from happening and while nothing happens, the very idea that it “could” happen was just very disturbing. It definitely was NOT a Lolita style of story plot, but the simple inclusion of it really disturbed me. Thankfully Koontz never gets graphic, but he also doesn't shy away from his characters stating what they plan to do to Laura. So just be aware of that particular subject matter.

I mentioned the non-rush ending, which is not typical of Koontz and how much I liked that. What I REALLY liked however was how Koontz slips in a “better” future that was “meant to be”, one without a Soviet Union. I never saw that outcome coming and seeing how he wrote it into the storyline was cool. I just smiled at how he uses time travel and the rules he sets up.

I'd recommend this book as long as you handle the tension of child Laura being in real danger.

★★★★☆