David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "page-turner"

I've read reviews of THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB that argue Lagercrantz's book is on a par with the previous Lisbeth Salander novels. I beg to disagree.
For on thing Lagercrantz is more of a journalist and celebrity biographer than a novelist and it shows. A big no-no in the mystery craft is not to try to use dialogue to provide backstory. Lagercrantz does this over and over. No reporter would let his source carry the interview like the Blomkvist interviews.
Also, once again, Salander, the star of the show, doesn't get enough time on stage. Too much of the book is about Blomkvist whining about Millennium possibly going under and stories in celebrity mags that claim he's over the hill. He hasn't had a big story since Lisbeth's Russian gangster father was revealed as a major crime figure and eliminated.
This story is about cyber hacking, mainly of the NSA. They're really bad guys in the story, so bad that the story is rather unbelievable. Yes, they snoop on everybody, but they don't steal intellectual property.
The intellectual property we're speaking of is artificial intelligence and a scientist named Franz Balder has made great strides in the field. But he's developed a conscience. All he wants to do is help his autistic son August. Surprisingly his ex-wife isn't opposed to the idea. But then he's murdered and Lisbeth swoops in to save August. There's also lots of information on how to hack into a file. Of course August is a savante (isn't everybody?) and he helps Salander decipher an important NSA file.
We are also treated to another nasty villain, Camilla, Lisbeth's beautiful, psychotic twin sister. She's inherited her father's crime syndicate, but she's so beautiful and shy looking that nobody believes what a criminal mastermind she is. She hates her sister and a confrontation is imminent.
That's another thing that's wrong with the book. The ending just fades out without a real confrontation. There is one, but it's not between the sisters. That's what I hate about series mysteries. Some of them have cliff hangers, and you have to buy the next book to find out what happens. Lagercrantz is doing well enough with this one for that to be inevitable. Not that I won't read it.

I read a review of CARI MORA in the MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE. The reviewer hated it. He thought there was too much gratuitous violence. I almost didn't buy the book because of that review. But this is Thomas Harris, author of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, which I believe was an academy award winner; Hannibal Lector, one of the main characters, is a cannibal.

There is a brief reference to cannibalism in CARI MORA, but it's mostly a suspense novel with a great central character. Cari Mora is as tough as nails, and she shows it during the climax. Cari was kidnapped when she was only twelve years old to fight as a child solider for revolutionaries in Columbia. These were Marxist revolutionaries, and they would attack villages where the para-military was strong. Cari's leader was about to shoot a child hiding under a house when she shot him in the back of the head. She had to run for it or die a horrible death. She wound up working as a cook in Miami for some crooks who were trying to find twenty-five million in gold hidden under a mansion owned by a drug lord.

There are two central villains, Hans Peter Schneider, who also sells human organs. Sometimes his victims are still alive when he harvests them. They end up in a crematorium. Hans Peter wants to do the same thing to Cari when she kills two of his men after they killed one of Don Ernesto's men, Antonio, a potential lover of Cari's, whom she'd been giving the cold shoulder.

Dan Ernesto, the second-semi villain, has his own men cruising off shore disguised as fisherman. But Hans Peter knows they're there. Dan Ernesto runs a school for pick pockets among other nefarious affairs. But at one point he tries to save Cari, although he eventually uses her as a ploy to get the gold.

Antonio, Cari's ersatz lover, finds a hole leading to the patio of the mansion but the area beneath the patio is flooded and Antonio takes a picture of what's down there. It's a refrigerator-like safe. Don Ernesto finds out from a source in Columbia that's it's rigged to blow if anybody moves it. That's where the gold is.

I read the last fifty pages in one sitting, unusual for me because of my back, but I couldn't wait to find one what happened to Cari, whom Hans Peter has located and plans to grab. Cari has led a violent existence; she's not afraid of these people, she's loaded for bear. I'm glad I didn't listen to that reviewer. It's food for thought. How often are reviews right? Let your prior relationship with the author rule.