Tucker Elliot's Blog, page 9
October 27, 2015
Book Review: Final Hour
This is the second novella that features Makani and Pogo in the build-up to the release of ASHLEY BELL. Makani has the supernatural ability to read a person’s darkest secrets with a simple touch, but as we found out with LAST LIGHT this power can lead to devastating results.
In FINAL HOUR Makani again crosses paths with a psychopath—but unlike LAST LIGHT, which saw Makani and Pogo fighting for their own survival, this time they are on a mission to save an imprisoned girl.
It’s a quick read, and while it’s not even close to my favorite Dean Koontz novella it is still much, much better than the typical “short” that noted authors are routinely releasing these days in advance of their new novels.
There is always a reason for the madness in a Dean Koontz story—and I find that incredibly admirable, especially given the shallowness of the society we live in today. A quote from FINAL HOUR illustrates this: “It’s the sanest thing of all to live your life with the understanding that every hour may be the final hour.”
I would definitely recommend this novella: 5/5 stars.
To read more about this novella, use this Amazon affiliate link.
October 21, 2015
Book Review: Rogue Lawyer
If John Grisham is ever in urgent need of help from the police, for his sake I hope the officers that respond haven’t read this book. I understand this is fiction, but I seriously don’t understand how Grisham, his agent, editors, publicists and publishing team thought it would be a good idea to create a protagonist that denigrates police officers and other public officials on nearly every page of the book. I would be very interested to read a review of this book that is written by someone affiliated with law enforcement.
There is even a character that declares he is going to renounce his citizenship and leave the country because he can’t take “it” anymore. “It” being America, I guess. Well, hey, in the real world I have lived overseas in service to my country and I have been in places where the people truly live in fear of the cops and the government. And guess what? It doesn’t look anything like America.
Again, I know this is fiction—but even setting aside the asinine ramblings about how corrupt it is in America, this is still a terrible book.
It is divided into six parts, and they are so disjointed that for the first half of the book I couldn’t fathom why it was being sold as a novel. It felt like a collection of unrelated novellas. There is very little dialogue in the beginning of the book. It’s “this” and “that” and “then” and on and on it goes. The threads do finally come together, at least somewhat, in the second half of the book, and for a moment I thought it might even get interesting because there was a scene that perfectly set up the rogue lawyer to show some growth as a character … but geez, it turns out he was right all along. The cops, mayors, judges, soldiers and city councilmembers are all evil.
Honestly, if this is a reflection of John Grisham’s worldview—and it might be, because as he did with GRAY MOUNTAIN he tends to insert his causes into his writing—then I feel sorry for him. I don’t care how much money he has, it must be a miserable existence to have such a bleak outlook on life. Look, I get it—we have problems in America. Things aren’t perfect. Fiction is a great tool for illuminating those problems and generating discussion for how they can be fixed.
But that is not happening with this book.
I simply can’t recommend it: 1/5 stars.
If you want to see reviews from other readers, use this Amazon affiliate link.
October 15, 2015
October 14, 2015
October 13, 2015
October 12, 2015
October 9, 2015
Travel: Seven Dragon Heads
The seven dragon heads in front of this Buddhist temple in Chonburi, Thailand don’t creep me out, but the smiling boy-sized monk statue sure does.
Book Review: The Survivor
If you grade Kyle Mills relative to other authors who recently were tasked with continuing a popular series (i.e. David Lagercrantz / Stieg Larsson, Grant Blackwood / Tom Clancy) then I think he deserves high marks. It reads and feels very consistent with the Mitch Rapp that Vince Flynn unleashed on the world.
However, if you set aside everything else and simply critique the book in an objective manner, then a couple things distracted me. For the first third of the book the bad guys are continually lamenting how hard it is to kill Rapp. He’s a “survivor,” hence the name of the book. It felt really over-the-top, but at the same time, it was cool because it also felt like a tribute to Vince Flynn that his character is going to be continued. I assumed that any book that spends so much time setting up a theme would see it through to the last page, but then everything shifted mid-stream and suddenly it wasn’t important anymore. It was a major disconnect, and probably had more to do with Kyle Mills stepping in to finish something started by Vince Flynn than anything else … but still, it was really distracting.
The other thing: for the last two-thirds of the book it felt like Rapp was a comic book super hero instead of a serious literary character with a unique worldview. Kennedy didn’t even bother trying to control Rapp. He literally did whatever he wanted. His reaction to every colleague was to threaten him or her physically. He offered to kill a senator or even the president if necessary. I mean come on, this is a serious character? Rapp has always had a singular us vs. them mindset. Rapp has always been difficult to get along with. But Rapp has always been heroic. For much of the final chapters he was nothing more than a bad caricature.
I will add one thing: I think a lot of this was done by Kyle Mills to set up a way to evolve and grow Rapp as a character. He gave us a glimpse of that toward the end of the book, as we see an introspective Rapp for the first time. It will be interesting to see if this continues in the next book and how Mills plans to develop Rapp.
3.5 / 5 stars.
Use this affiliate link to learn more about The Survivor on Amazon.
