Book Title: Invisible Prey Author: John Sandford
Publisher: G. P. Putnam’s Sons / Penguin Group
Publication date: 2007
Review date...moreBook Title: Invisible Prey Author: John Sandford
Publisher: G. P. Putnam’s Sons / Penguin Group
Publication date: 2007
Review date: January 2011
Stars: 1.5
(1-didn’t like it; 2-it was ok; 3-liked it; 4-really liked it; 5-it was amazing)
Lucas Davenport returns as an agent from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) to pursue the killers responsible for the deaths of two elderly women: Constance Bucher, a wealthy socialite, and her maid, Sugar Peebles. Simultaneously, Lucas handles a crime that involves a politician and pressure from the governor. Constantly on the run between the two cases, he is pulled further and further into the world of antique collecting as well as into the political world of the governor. The killers continue to evade discovery as they watch Lucas’s progress toward solving their crime. As he gets closer to learning the truth, they take more and more drastic actions, leaving a trail of violence and evidence of greed in their wake.
The story opens with the killers staking out the house of Constance Bucher. They have obviously done their homework as they know the name of the maid that opens the door—Peebles. They kill her and Bucher and then steal some items after moving the bodies to where they can’t be seen from outside. The narrative switches in the next chapter to Lucas with the primary point of view. He is consulting with a colleague on the political situation that he finds himself in due to an alleged crime committed by a well-known politician. Another agent arrives on the scene to update Lucas on the murders, and so the chase begins. Lucas is a veteran of detective work and has a deep and wide network of people and other resources to draw on in order to accomplish his job. As the narration switches between Lucas, the killers, and other characters, the details of the crimes begin to unfold, and Lucas is able to make more and more connections. He learns about other cases that might be connected to the Bucher murder case while discreetly arranging things so that the governor’s wishes in handling the politician’s crime can be met, within the law of course. The killers keep an eye on Lucas’s progress and take drastic measures to keep their identities secret.
Lucas Davenport is an agent for the BCA, but his real boss is Rose Marie Roux, the director of the Department of Public Safety. Lucas is apparently the star of all the Prey novels by John Sandford. He is a “man’s man,” married to a plastic surgeon (who seems to play the role of his conscience), and father to a son and a teenage ward. Lucas is almost three-dimensional. He seems to care about his work, although he is a gruff man with a foul mouth. In fact, almost all of the characters regularly swear. Only a few characters are shown to have higher language standards, one of them being a teenager named Ronnie Lash. Ronnie is a good student, well-liked, a devout Christian, and well portrayed. He struck me as a kid with a soul. Unfortunately, despite the many characters in this story, very few have any depth. As mentioned already, most have foul language. These characters portray a world where crass behavior, foul language, and dirty innuendo are the norm. This really detracted from the story for me as I thought the plot was well thought out and the story promising.
Sandford has a very direct method of narration. For the most part, he gives just enough detail for the reader to envision the surroundings and the characters; however, he then gives almost an obsessive amount of detail on streets and directions of turns when Lucas or the other agents are driving. The use of foul language and the level of nastiness (sexually and in brutality) of the crimes leads me to believe that this series may be popular for its titillating elements. I have not, however, read any other books by Sandford, so I cannot draw any authoritative conclusions. Early in the story, a fleeting character named “Capslock” is introduced. I felt indignant at this choice of name for a character. It seems almost as though Sandford had put in a placeholder name (from the keyboard he was typing on) and forgot to put in an actual name for the character. Did the editors not question this choice of name? Overall, I might have appreciated Sandford’s writing more if not for the above-mentioned shortcomings.
Ronnie Lash’s character serves as a great ideal to look up to and model. However, the reader must wade through a lot of filth and violence to reap this one small reward. That particular reward also comes early in the story, and no further spiritual markers or moral awakenings are made. All of the characters seem to end in the same spiritual place they began.
Overall, I think the plot had a lot of promise and could have turned into a really solid story with strong, deep characters and emotional or spiritual changes, whether for better or for worse. I am disappointed that this book did not impress me because I had been excited to pick it up and read it, hoping for a great story. Instead I did a lot of cringing as I learned to desensitize myself to the foul language and sexual innuendos.
I do not really recommend this to anyone. If you don’t mind the use of foul language and titillating imagery and want an easy diversion, this book might suit you. However, it will not uplift you or improve you in any way that I can foresee. If you’re going to spend time with fictional characters, you might as well read something more fulfilling—with deeper characters and some inner conflict. This book earned 1.5 stars only because of the plot.
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Book Title: The Orchid Shroud: A Novel of Death in the Dordogne
Author: Michelle Wan
Publisher: Doubleday (division of Random House)
Pu...moreBook Title: The Orchid Shroud: A Novel of Death in the Dordogne
Author: Michelle Wan
Publisher: Doubleday (division of Random House)
Publication date: 2006
Review date: 2011
Stars: 3.5
(1-didn’t like it; 2-it was ok; 3-liked it; 4-really liked it; 5-it was amazing)
Interior designer, Mara Dunn, is renovating the manor house of Christophe de Bonfond, a wealthy and socially prominent resident of the Sigoulane Valley in France, when her workers discover the body of a baby wrapped in a blue shroud. Authorities believe the body has been concealed for more than a century, and the news of the discovery causes a stir in the valley. This occurs at a terrible time for Christophe who is about to publish a book on his family name and its illustrious history. Christophe hires genealogist Jean-Claude Fournier to exonerate the de Bonfond family name, but Jean-Claude uncovers suspicions about the family history instead. Mara and her boyfriend, orchidologist Julian Wood, pursue the truth behind the baby’s death—Mara to resolve the story of the child’s death and Julian to acquire an elusive and mysterious orchid that also happens to be embroidered on the child’s shroud. Christophe’s disappearance and a subsequent grisly death heighten the stakes as Mara is fingered for murder.
The book is quite fun to read. Wan weaves an intricate and sophisticated story that is populated with interesting characters. The reader is taken on a murder mystery that involves multiple victims in different eras of time. Complicating the mystery of the deaths are the stories that the locals tell of werewolves. These werewolves are blamed by the villagers for the deaths of many people over the years. The stories are dismissed by the main characters as mythology, but the effect of their telling lingers in the background and creates an additional layer of suspense for the reader. Mara pursues the origins of these stories and finds herself becoming more and more wrapped up in Christophe’s life history as she tries to clear her name of murder. Wan intersperses the present-day narrative with chapters that narrate segments of the de Bonfond family’s past through the eyes of Henriette de Bonfond, née Bertillon. The storyline is tied together with details of the characters’ relational ambiguities, jealousies, distrust, friendships, and loyalties.
The main character is Mara Dunn, a Canadian interior designer. She has been introduced to Christophe de Bonfond by her boyfriend, Julian Wood, who is good friends with him. Mara has a successful career but is willing to do almost anything to keep the de Bonfond project, which would take her to the next level in her career. She and Julian have a lukewarm relationship—she wants more commitment from him but is unable to express it while Julian is content with their informal arrangement and shies away from commitment. Julian is an orchidologist who believes himself to be in competition with fellow orchidologist Géraud Laval, whose methods he detests with a passion. Julian is obsessive about his work and so acutely focused on obtaining the mysterious orchid, which he has named Cypripedium incognitum, that he is unable to pursue Mara in a meaningful way. Christophe de Bonfond, though he does not get as much “screen time” as do Mara and Julian, is truly a third main character. When he and his activities are not present in the narrative, the other characters are talking about him, talking about his family, researching his family story or estate, or connected to each other because of him. I found him to be a quirky, neurotic, and somewhat silly character. Mara considers him to be immature in many respects. Surrounding characters are well-fleshed out and are notable for quirky characters or other distinctive personality traits. One of my favorites is Patsy Reicher, Mara’s best friend. We actually never meet her except in her e-mails with Mara. Patsy is the one who provides stability for Mara, and the reader, in the midst of the chaos in the valley, supporting her as a friend should and helping her to remain calm and practical in her choices.
Michelle Wan does a wonderful job of storytelling. She has a distinctive voice and is able to vividly populate the reader’s mind with images of the characters and the locations in which they are interacting. She interweaves French with English with such smooth transitions that, although no definitions are given for the French, the reader is able to discern the meanings based on the context. She is able both to put the reader in a serious mindset during dangerous or thrilling moments as well as to create humorous moments with lighthearted banter in the friendly conversations and gossip between friends. Throughout all this, she maintains a sophistication in her language and in the characters that nicely underscores the high society that Mara, Julian, and others inhabit in this story.
The Orchid Shroud explores doubts about what is believable and what is not, what is natural and what is engineered, and who is trustworthy and who is not. It also explores the effects of wealth and social status on how people choose to interact with others as well as the moral choices they make.
This story has no obvious spiritual layer in it and is absent any moral law that is higher than the one that humans set for themselves, such as not committing murder. The characters are free to interact carnally without repercussion. The language used throughout is inoffensive.
Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable read. It was great fun, as a non-French speaker, to have French words thrown my way for me to decipher via context. Speculation of werewolves and a rare orchid also kept the pages open for me. And I enjoyed peeking into the world of high society in the French Dordogne and the hunt for Cypripedium incognitum.
I recommend this to those who want a fun yet sophisticated read. I would caution against adolescents or younger from reading this due to the illicit interactions that take place and romance that is sexual in nature. Unfortunately, the story did not receive 4 stars because of the recurrent carnal scenarios.
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**spoiler alert** I just finished Sarah by Marek Halter. Although Halter's writing is technically very good, I was not too impressed with the story. ...more**spoiler alert** I just finished Sarah by Marek Halter. Although Halter's writing is technically very good, I was not too impressed with the story.
It is based on the biblical story of Sarah, but the author take very large liberties with the facts. For example, he has Sarai bringing her infertility upon herself, her youth miraculously unchanged by time, and her being a daughter of a Lord of Ur while Abram is part of a shepherding people called the Mar.Tu.
Later, the unrelated lineages of Halter's Abram and Sarai become factually problematic when she is presented to Pharaoh as Abram's sister. In the Bible, we are told that she was, in fact, his half-sister. In Halter's book, she is not related to him at all, only sharing a common hometown in Ur. Additionally, Halter's Sarai has intimate relations with Pharaoh, which she enjoys with abandon. The story is also quite sexually explicit.
I enjoyed contemplating the possibility of the characters' motivations that drove them to make the choices that they did, the real life consequences of circumstances such as drought and the starvation and death that it brought, as well as the daily religious and ritualistic practices that the inhabitants of that long ago land might have performed.
All in all, however, I would not recommend this book for those who profess a Christian faith. There are too many other good books out there to spend time in this one.(less)
Upon receiving this book and reading the back cover synopsis, I really did not expect the st...more**spoiler alert** The Enclave by Karen Hancock
Upon receiving this book and reading the back cover synopsis, I really did not expect the story take the left turn that it did. The synopsis reads:
When Science Tries to Play God, Can One Man Summon the Courage to Stand in Its Way?
When Lacey McHenry accepts a prestigious research fellowship at the world-renowned Kendall-Jakes Longevity Institute, she sees it as a new start on life. But when a disturbing late-night encounter with a bizarre intruder leads to a cover-up by Institute authorities, she soon realizes all isn’t as it seems.
Caught in an elaborate game of deception and seduction, her only ally seems to be the brilliant but absent-minded geneticist, Cameron Reinhardt. A favorite of the Institute’s charismatic director, Cameron, too, came to K-J hoping to escape his past. But the more he learns about Lacey’s attacker, the more he fears that the past still pursues him.
Not certain they can trust each other, Cameron and Lacey reluctantly work together to uncover the shocking secrets that lurk behind the Institute’s respectable façade—secrets that turn out to be bigger, stranger, and far more dangerous than either of them could have imagined.
**spoiler alert**
The Enclave is a classic story about driven scientists who pursue genetic engineering for the “betterment” of mankind. Cameron (“Cam”) Reinhardt is a brilliant scientist in the employ of Kendall-Jakes Longevity Institute. He is the sole professing Christian at the institute and is persecuted for his faith. He also has a history in military intelligence—the experience of which renders him helpless against flashbacks of the nightmare that he survived in Afghanistan.
Parker Swain is the director of the institute, the mastermind of its operations, and has a history of pursuing his goals via any means possible. Swain gets himself banned from receiving federal research money from the FDA, and in return he builds his own privately funded genetic engineering empire with the help of wealthy investors. The institute is based out of a large building shaped like a ziggurat in the deserts of Arizona, surrounded by large berms that hide the campus from most of the surrounding areas.
Also at the Institute is a new arrival, Lacey McHenry, hired as a research assistant. She has a Master’s degree and dreams of obtaining her doctorate. That dream seems out of reach until Parker Swain offers her an opportunity that seems too good to be true.
The final protagonist is a young man named Zowan who is a New Edenite living in the Enclave. In this bizarre underground world, residents are ruled by Elders and High Elders and worship Father. The outside world has apparently been scorched to become inhospitable and poisonous to life, and thus the Enclave has been established as a safe haven for its occupants. As Zowan’s friend Andros is punished for refusing to say the Affirmation—a daily affirmation of their eternal love and devotion to Father for saving them, Zowan is overwhelmed by a sense of injustice to his friend as well as his own guilt for planting the seed of doubt in Andros’s mind.
I really enjoyed reading this book and pondering the possibilities of scientific exploration and its effects on morality and judgment. The main characters were well defined. Each had deep histories with frequent reflection, and enough mystery was given about each character that the reader is driven to read further in order to put the pieces together. The environment is described in detail, allowing the reader to envision the hallways of the institute, the labs, the offices, as well as the surrounding areas outside the ziggurat’s walls. Two parallel storylines are followed for a good portion of the book, eventually converging and leading into the climax of the story. Let me address each of these aspects in more detail.
Not being a scientist, I cannot claim the authenticity of the scientific descriptions of conversations in the story. However they were all convincing to me and led to a credible plot. I also don’t have a military or intelligence background, but all of those details were generally convincing to me.
Cam’s faith in the midst of this environment was also convincing; in fact, it was inspiring! He has a rock solid faith that is supported by daily Scripture study—something that all Christians should aspire to. Lacey’s resignation of her faith reflects the experience of many faltering Christians. She has had a difficult life and has learned to cope without accepting the grace of God. She struggles to fit in at the institute until she “passes” her initiation, after which she is warmly accepted by her colleagues and promoted by the Director.
On the other hand, Cam has been at the institute for some time but has never been embraced by his associates, primarily due to his faith in God. He is regarded by many as an absent-minded and eccentric, yet brilliant scientist. All of the employees regularly mock him, and Cam suffers continual scorn from those in the Inner Circle.
The secondary characters are understandably less well defined but tend to have either good guy or bad guy characterizations.
The institute’s ziggurat-style main structure lends itself to mystery, and the barren desert of its campus adds the perfect touch. Karen Hancock creates a secretive scientific society that is more securely guarded and watched than a top-secret military compound. The campus’s retreat-type spa and other amenities are not described in much depth but are treated as ancillary locations in the story. Overall, the campus is shown to be a self-sustained environment, one which the employees rarely leave. In fact, in the timeframe of the story, Cam is the only character mentioned to take leave, and that is only for one day (Sunday). And he is followed by institute surveillance during the entire leave.
The parallel storylines create a mystique that continues for three-quarters of the book. The further along the story gets, the more the reader is able to make connections between the storylines. However, once the storylines converge, chaos ensues rapidly. Hancock does an excellent job at pacing the story and keeping the mysteries shrouded until the right moments. I was disappointed however that the end of the book was rather abrupt. I would have appreciated having a longer slope to the ending of the story, with some hope-filled directions for each of “good” characters and justice-oriented directions for the “bad” ones, than the sudden drop-off that was written instead. Not that it needs to end like a fairy-tale, but the book left a lot of loose ends. The ending was almost a brief summary of the characters getting out of their scrape, hinting at a future together, discussing the other characters verbally, and end.
Here are a few of my unanswered questions:
Was Frogeater Neos? Why was he eating frog legs? Was that something they ate in the Enclave? Why was Frogeater obsessed with Lacey? What was his motivation for breaking into the animal lab to begin with? Was it Neos just trying to learn more about the surface world?
How will the surviving Edenites be integrated into society? How are they processing the surface world? Why is one of the main characters, Zowan, brushed off at the end? What happened to his P.O.V.?
I truly enjoyed reading this book but also struggled with the issues noted above. Perhaps the book was rushed into publication or the editors did not pay enough attention to the flow of the story. I enjoy stories that leave me with food for thought, but the many loose endings in this story really put a damper on my ultimate enjoyment of the book. This story had a lot of potential, and it is unfortunate that that potential was not fulfilled.
I would recommend this book to others as a diversionary tale but would caution against expectations of a fulfilling adventure.
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I just finished Dragonspell from the DragonKeeper Chronicles by Donita K. Paul. Paul is an accomplished writer. Her tight writing and image-inducing d...moreI just finished Dragonspell from the DragonKeeper Chronicles by Donita K. Paul. Paul is an accomplished writer. Her tight writing and image-inducing descriptions tell a story about an amazing world filled with a variety of intelligent species and evil species. Mythological creatures abound and twists are just right. I applaud Paul on her work and look forward to reading more of her work!(less)
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