David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "suspenseful"
Cari Mora
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.
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.
