I think I must have the summertime blues. I just haven't found much to love about the season's new books. Case in point is Carl Hiaasen's latest. Normally, I find Hiaasen to be laugh-out-loud fun. This time, I just found his characters to be tiresome.
The problem might be his subject matter. Is there anything more boring than a no-talent pop-culture figure's journey of self-destruction? The train wreck here is 22-year-old Cherry Pye (nee Cheryl Bunterman), who is trying hard to rekindle the success she found at age 15 with her breakout album "Touch Me Like You Mean It" on Jailbait Records. Unfortunately, Cherry (who insists that she now wants to be called Cherish) has spiraled into a sordid frenzy for alcohol and any drug she can lay her hands on. This behavior, naturally, would drive away the tweens who currently love her, so her peeps have hired a look-alike actress, Ann Delusia, to serve as her double whenever the real Cherry Pye is too messed up to be seen in public.
When a desperate paparazzo named Bang Abbott kidnaps Ann--thinking it's Cherry--the pop star's parasitic people face a dilemma. After all, it wasn't even Cherry who was kidnapped. Bang ups the ante by threatening to release some compromising pictures of Ann posing as Cherry, and it's fun to watch everyone try to turn the situation to their own avaricious advantage.
The mayhem is increased by the re-introduction of some favorite characters from previous books. Skink, the former governor of Florida who makes routine appearances in Hiaasen's books, meets Ann and falls into paternal love with her, going so far as to clean up his act and put on a Hermes shirt and a suit by Ermenegilo Zegna. Chemo, the walking dermatology-disaster from Skin Tight who, after his arm was bitten off by a barracuda, had it replaced by a weed whacker, serves as Cherry's bodyguard. I suspect the overly-botoxed publicists who underwent surgery to become identical twins may have made an appearance in a previous book as well.
As with many of Hiaasen's books, the normal, honorable character--in this case, Ann--is truly heroic, able to double-cross the greedy low-lifes that add the color. But the story has, as its root, Cherry Pye's destruction from her addiction to pills and alcohol. Call me a prude, but I find the real-life behavior of Brittany, Lindsay and Paris to be pathetic and tragic, rather than funny. Hiaasen's books usually focus on retribution descending on those who are destroying the Everglades. That is a subject I can care about a lot more than I care about flash-in-the-pan rock stars killing themselves with drugs while their dysfunctional parents and hangers-on look the other way.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Dead Line, by Stella Rimington (Knopf; $25.95)
Stella Rimington's latest shows that she's no flash in the pan. The former head of Britain's MI5 turned to writing when she retired. Her suspenseful plots are made all the more realistic by her insider's knowledge of spycraft.
With her boss out of commission nursing his dying wife, MI5 agent Liz Carlyle is charged with the daunting task of thwarting a plot by Syrian malcontents intent on disrupting a peace conference at a Scottish golf resort. The stakes are all the higher when it is announced that both the British prime minister and the US president will attend. As if she didn't already have her hands full, a former colleague asks Liz to investigate a charming guy who is paying unusual attention to the colleague's naive and wealthy mother-in-law. This nail-biter has it all: spy vs. spy, gold-diggers preying on lonely women, and foreign agents snaring their quarry in an old fashioned "honey trap." This is Rimington's fourth spy thriller, and it's a doozy--as good, if not better, than her previous three.
With her boss out of commission nursing his dying wife, MI5 agent Liz Carlyle is charged with the daunting task of thwarting a plot by Syrian malcontents intent on disrupting a peace conference at a Scottish golf resort. The stakes are all the higher when it is announced that both the British prime minister and the US president will attend. As if she didn't already have her hands full, a former colleague asks Liz to investigate a charming guy who is paying unusual attention to the colleague's naive and wealthy mother-in-law. This nail-biter has it all: spy vs. spy, gold-diggers preying on lonely women, and foreign agents snaring their quarry in an old fashioned "honey trap." This is Rimington's fourth spy thriller, and it's a doozy--as good, if not better, than her previous three.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
In the Name of Honor, by Richard North Patterson (Henry Holt; $26)
It's about time! After several misfires, Richard North Patterson has written a book that equals or betters anything he's written before. In the Name of Honor has it all: fascinating, unpredictable characters; gripping courtroom drama; and a crackerjack twist that adds complexity and moral conflict to what was already a multi-layered plot.
Here's the back story. Captain Paul Terry of the Army's JAG Corps is two months from starting a lucrative new job with a civilian law firm when he's assigned to be defense counsel on a sticky case: an Army lieutenant accused of shooting his former commanding officer. The relationships are very confusing, so stay with me here: We've got two Army families, the McCarrans and the Gallaghers. The dads are best friends at West Point, but only Anthony McCarran comes back from Viet Nam alive. His wife dies young. So the Gallaghers and McCarrans are, for all intents and purposes, one family. Okay, fast forward. Anthony McCarran is now a general, in line to be named chairman of the joint chiefs. Brian McCarran has followed the family tradition of joining the Army, while his sister Meg is a civilian attorney. Their quasi-sister, Kate Gallagher, is married to Captain Joe D'Abruzzo, who is also'coincidentally (and conveniently for the plot) Brian's commanding officer in Iraq. McCarran and D'Abruzzo return to the states, and each is a changed man. D'Abruzzo has become violent and beats Kate Gallagher, even to the extent of holding a gun to her head. She asks Brian McCarran for help. He removes the gun from the D'Abruzzo house. D'Abruzzo realizes the gun is missing, goes to Brian McCarran's apartment, looks like he's going to attack, and Brian McCarran shoots him dead.
And that's when the story begins. Captain Terry is charged with trying to get Brian McCarran off. Self-defense is a tough sell, since D'Abruzzo was shot in the back. Terry suspects that something happened in Iraq that changed both McCarran and D'Abruzzo and might have influenced the shooting. McCarran won't talk about his experiences, nor is he particularly forthcoming about other details that Terry needs to know in order to properly defend him. Working closely with Meg McCarran, Terry probes deeper and deeper until he finally realizes that the family secrets and shifting dynamics of the intertwined McCarran and Gallagher families form a force larger than he can surmount.
The story is told primarily through dialogue and courtroom testimony, and the real-time revelations add to the suspense. In some of his previous books, Patterson has spent as much time on the soap box as on the plot. There's none of that in this book: it's just a terrific, perfectly crafted courtroom thriller.
Here's the back story. Captain Paul Terry of the Army's JAG Corps is two months from starting a lucrative new job with a civilian law firm when he's assigned to be defense counsel on a sticky case: an Army lieutenant accused of shooting his former commanding officer. The relationships are very confusing, so stay with me here: We've got two Army families, the McCarrans and the Gallaghers. The dads are best friends at West Point, but only Anthony McCarran comes back from Viet Nam alive. His wife dies young. So the Gallaghers and McCarrans are, for all intents and purposes, one family. Okay, fast forward. Anthony McCarran is now a general, in line to be named chairman of the joint chiefs. Brian McCarran has followed the family tradition of joining the Army, while his sister Meg is a civilian attorney. Their quasi-sister, Kate Gallagher, is married to Captain Joe D'Abruzzo, who is also'coincidentally (and conveniently for the plot) Brian's commanding officer in Iraq. McCarran and D'Abruzzo return to the states, and each is a changed man. D'Abruzzo has become violent and beats Kate Gallagher, even to the extent of holding a gun to her head. She asks Brian McCarran for help. He removes the gun from the D'Abruzzo house. D'Abruzzo realizes the gun is missing, goes to Brian McCarran's apartment, looks like he's going to attack, and Brian McCarran shoots him dead.
And that's when the story begins. Captain Terry is charged with trying to get Brian McCarran off. Self-defense is a tough sell, since D'Abruzzo was shot in the back. Terry suspects that something happened in Iraq that changed both McCarran and D'Abruzzo and might have influenced the shooting. McCarran won't talk about his experiences, nor is he particularly forthcoming about other details that Terry needs to know in order to properly defend him. Working closely with Meg McCarran, Terry probes deeper and deeper until he finally realizes that the family secrets and shifting dynamics of the intertwined McCarran and Gallagher families form a force larger than he can surmount.
The story is told primarily through dialogue and courtroom testimony, and the real-time revelations add to the suspense. In some of his previous books, Patterson has spent as much time on the soap box as on the plot. There's none of that in this book: it's just a terrific, perfectly crafted courtroom thriller.
Monday, July 5, 2010
The Lion, by Nelson DeMille (Grand Central Publishing; $27.99)
Some of Nelson DeMille's books are so great that I despair when I read the last page; others are so annoying that I rue the day I opened them. The Gold Coast is an example of the former, while its sequel, The Gate House, is a prime example of the latter.
His latest just manages to skirt the line. John Corey, his recurring character, can't resist being the juvenile cut-up he was when I first encountered him in Plum Island (perhaps my favorite of DeMille's books). Fortunately, the plot is almost good enough that one can skip Corey's sophomoric one-liners and still enjoy the story.
Former NYPD detective Corey and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, both work for the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force, a joint operation between the two agencies. They met when they partnered up in The Lion's Game, in which they chased Libyan terrorist Asad Khalil in his murderous trail across the country. Khalil's plan was to kill the pilots responsible for the bombs that took out his family many years ago. He disappeared before he finished, but Corey always knew he'd be back.
It is soon evident that Corey and Mayfield are at the top of Khalil's to-do list. But they are not alone. Khalil does not let human emotions get in the way of his jihad. Soon bodies begin turning up, many of which belonged to fellow Muslims who Khalil killed after they helped him with the logistics of his latest terrorist activities. Corey and Mayfield believe that those in the Middle East who financed Khalil's personal vengeance would only do so if he agreed to also commit a 9/11 type atrocity. The question is whether the agents can find the killer before he's able to pull off a horrifying event. The NYPD and FBI want to capture and question the killer, but Corey just wants to kill him.
The plot is very tense, but suffers when a main character takes an unnecessary risk that the reader knows will be disastrous. (You know how you laugh at the stupidity of the teenage babysitter in a slasher film who goes into the basement to investigate a noise? I laughed at this character's similar stupidity. It's that unbelievable.) Ultimately, the book made me angry. I'm a major fan of DeMille, but my loyalty is waning. He is so incredibly talented, and his early books were so enjoyable, that it's a tragic waste that he's ruined his later books by his characters' off-putting immaturity. One only hopes that someday he'll realize how much better his books would be without the quips.
His latest just manages to skirt the line. John Corey, his recurring character, can't resist being the juvenile cut-up he was when I first encountered him in Plum Island (perhaps my favorite of DeMille's books). Fortunately, the plot is almost good enough that one can skip Corey's sophomoric one-liners and still enjoy the story.
Former NYPD detective Corey and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, both work for the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force, a joint operation between the two agencies. They met when they partnered up in The Lion's Game, in which they chased Libyan terrorist Asad Khalil in his murderous trail across the country. Khalil's plan was to kill the pilots responsible for the bombs that took out his family many years ago. He disappeared before he finished, but Corey always knew he'd be back.
It is soon evident that Corey and Mayfield are at the top of Khalil's to-do list. But they are not alone. Khalil does not let human emotions get in the way of his jihad. Soon bodies begin turning up, many of which belonged to fellow Muslims who Khalil killed after they helped him with the logistics of his latest terrorist activities. Corey and Mayfield believe that those in the Middle East who financed Khalil's personal vengeance would only do so if he agreed to also commit a 9/11 type atrocity. The question is whether the agents can find the killer before he's able to pull off a horrifying event. The NYPD and FBI want to capture and question the killer, but Corey just wants to kill him.
The plot is very tense, but suffers when a main character takes an unnecessary risk that the reader knows will be disastrous. (You know how you laugh at the stupidity of the teenage babysitter in a slasher film who goes into the basement to investigate a noise? I laughed at this character's similar stupidity. It's that unbelievable.) Ultimately, the book made me angry. I'm a major fan of DeMille, but my loyalty is waning. He is so incredibly talented, and his early books were so enjoyable, that it's a tragic waste that he's ruined his later books by his characters' off-putting immaturity. One only hopes that someday he'll realize how much better his books would be without the quips.
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