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John

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John is currently reading

Simple Genius (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell, #3)

by David Baldacci (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading, close-to-trashing

read in August 2008

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John said: " I love genre fiction. Any genre but pure Romance and I've even read a few of those. Whether I'm reading it "seriously" (John Le Carre for instance) or purely for fun (Tom Clancy) I enjoy it more than most serious novels I've been exposed to. Usually I love genre fiction. Any genre but pure Romance and I've even read a few of those. Whether I'm reading it "seriously" (John Le Carre for instance) or purely for fun (Tom Clancy) I enjoy it more than most serious novels I've been exposed to. Usually the "mainstream" novels I most enjoy are, at their base, genre novels that have escaped classification.

At the same time, those genre authors who break through to the mainstream best sellers are frequently disappointing. Nora Roberts springs to mind, as does John Grisham. I tried the Literary Guild book club years ago and was consistently disappointed by their "top" offerings.

So it is with David Baldacci. Frequently promoted in bookstores as a terrific writer deserving of our cash for his latest hardback, Baldacci belongs more to the pulps. You can just see the buxom woman in handcuffs on the cover of "True Police" magazine. I love appreciating the pulps for their place in our adolescence (see The China Death Cloud review) but as an adult, pulp without nostalgia, history, or context is just bad writing.

In the very first chapters Baldacci reveals his "knack" for dialogue and suspense during an altercation with some teenagers throwing a loud party. In defense of his neighborhood, Baldacci's protoganist, Sean (who cares what his last name is), crashes the party with a baseball bat and starts demolishing liquor bottles. "Asshole!" the kids exclaim. "Well I can about see yours!" Sean rebuts in a scathing critique of the women's fashion on display at the party.

Baldacci takes several chapters just to begin setting up the story, separating his two main protagonists, Michelle and Sean, into parallel story lines (I guess he didn't have enough story for a whole novel) with Michelle in an asylum and Sean on a detective contract at some super-top-secret-government-computer-research facility. Its possible he'll tie these two story lines together by the end of the book but it seems like it will be a clumsy granny knot of a plot if he does.

Baldacci writes every character from the point of view of a macho male - even the women. Sean's employer on his latest contract is apparently a former flame still looking for a way to get Sean back into her bed. Not her heart. Not her life. Her bed. The way she appraises Sean is little different from the way Sean appraises her or the way the orderly at the asylum appraises Michelle.

And that's just in the first 50 pages or so. I'm reading it when I'm too bored to read anything else and I'm about to put it into the donation box. So far I don't see anything worthwhile in this book. The print is big and the words are small. My 11 year old has more interesting things than this on her summer reading list.

I'm not likely to pick up another Baldacci in this lifetime. ...more "

Aug 11, 2008 03:53PM · see review