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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
January 30, 2026
This was a very strange book. Our main character is Forrest Evers, a retired Formula 1 driver who's taken a new job as a reluctant newspaper reporter. His first assignment takes him to Phoenix, where a reporter named Barnes takes a few minutes to show him how to use a computer. When Barnes then gets blown up by dynamite after leaving the office, Forrest takes it so personally that he spend the rest of the book obsessing over it, and closing every chapter by reminding us how he can't stop thinking about Barnes in the hospital, and how he has to "do it for Barnes", as so on. However, he doesn't really DO anything, just kinda bums around town and worries about the land he owns and chases after the love interest, Sally (who nicknames him Walnut, except the author spells it "Wahlnut". Maybe that's a British thing?).
It isn't until 150 PAGES into the book that Sally's father, the richest man in Phoenix, offer Evers to be the manager of a new American Formula 1 team and hands him a check for $5 million. This should've been the inciting incident, as it would give us reason to suspect the loyalty of anyone and everyone Forrest deals with. Instead, the author tries to cram an entire book's worth of plot and twists into less than half the book. The book is also 90-something percent written in a very neutral tone, to the point that you could forget it's first-person until the author suddenly throws in an odd, exaggerated, over-the-top folksy sentence. It's trying to be Elmore Leonard or James Ellroy, I think, but missing the mark by a mile.
In the end, it reminds me of the one Jeffrey Archer book I read: If you're holding it to the standard of mass-market, airport fiction, it's not so bad. If you're looking to hold it to a higher standard, I think it'll disappoint you.
It isn't until 150 PAGES into the book that Sally's father, the richest man in Phoenix, offer Evers to be the manager of a new American Formula 1 team and hands him a check for $5 million. This should've been the inciting incident, as it would give us reason to suspect the loyalty of anyone and everyone Forrest deals with. Instead, the author tries to cram an entire book's worth of plot and twists into less than half the book. The book is also 90-something percent written in a very neutral tone, to the point that you could forget it's first-person until the author suddenly throws in an odd, exaggerated, over-the-top folksy sentence. It's trying to be Elmore Leonard or James Ellroy, I think, but missing the mark by a mile.
In the end, it reminds me of the one Jeffrey Archer book I read: If you're holding it to the standard of mass-market, airport fiction, it's not so bad. If you're looking to hold it to a higher standard, I think it'll disappoint you.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review