Today at Veni, Vidi, Legi . . . A Season For The Dead by David Hewson

4.5 Stars for A Season For The Dead by David Hewson

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

My Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

Amazon Rating: 3.80 / 5.00

Goodreads Rating: 3.93 / 5.00

Nick Dunne returns home on his fifth wedding anniversary to find his house in a mess and his wife, Amy, missing. He is the most obvious suspect in her suspicious disappearance and it does not take the police very long to start grilling him and tearing apart his supposedly happy marriage. As we follow Nick’s struggles with the police and local media we follow their initial courtship through Amy’s diary. This reveals that Amy comes from very wealthy parents who have a totally ideal partnership and write children’s books about Amazing Amy. She and Nick are both brilliant and beautiful, making the perfect couple as they waft through life on a cushion of Amy’s money and their charm.

Then life goes wrong. They both lose their jobs and are forced to move from the glamor of New York to the backside of nowhere, Missouri, where they need to care for Nick’s ill parents. Amy hates living without the vivacious whirlwind of the big city and her diary entries outline the cracks that appear in their marriage and Nick becomes increasingly resentful of Amy’s money, even though it is the only thing keeping them afloat. It soon becomes clear that she is scared for her life and Nick is not being entirely truthful.

It is impossible to really review this title without revealing at least one massive spoiler, so I will begin with a few points that will not spoil the ending and then give you fair warning of when to stop reading.

The initial premise of this title sounded very intriguing and I was not quite sure what to expect when I started it. Unlike most Thrillers, we do not have a simple exploration of the facts by a detective. Rather, we follow all the events through the eyes of some highly unreliable narrators so that our perceptions of the main characters are constantly shifting. This makes it a very enjoyable read, especially if you like character-driven fiction, as I do. However, it can also be a little frustrating as you attempt to sort through the facts trying to find the underlying truth of the situation: just when you feel that you have a good handle on what happened you will suddenly learn an important fact that turns everything on its head. I loved this, but I know that not everyone will.

Another problem that some of the book group expressed was with the rather unpleasant characters involved. On the whole, everyone of any importance is revealed to be an unrelentingly awful human being, which some of the group found a little too negative for their taste. Although I can understand their desire to have at least one ‘good’ character to follow, I am also willing to accept that most people are not perfect. It is also clear that most of the ‘bad’ characters are products of their upbringing, circumstances and bad decisions rather than simple, two-dimensional ‘evil’ people. We also see people who are trying to be good but who simply cannot manage to live up to that ideal.

In short: if you want an uncomplicated story of nice people doing sensible things, you should probably avoid this title.

Spoilers Ahead!

I mentioned above that we have few ‘good’ people in this book and that most definitely refers to our leads: Nick and Amy. Just as we are convinced that Nick is guilty of Amy’s murder we discover that his big secret is an affair and also that she has faked her own abduction to punish him. After this turning point our opinions of the couple swerve backwards and forwards as we uncover more and more about their personalities and lives. Ultimately, we learn that they are both narcissistic and unable to take responsibility for their own lives and emotions.

Their marriage is all sparkle and show, but is based on what they both thought would be a good idea at the time rather than love and respect. It is doomed to failure and collapses when placed under the strain of lost jobs and ill parents. Amy is too much of a perfectionist, demanding and overly critical of Nick, who is happy to simply slide through life. He resents her easy access to money, while she hates the parents that supply it because she is constantly expected to live up to the fictional Amazing Amy that they created. They are two people who should never have made the commitment to marry, but did and were than too stubborn, in Amy’s case, or indebted and lazy, in Nick’s, to realize that they should walk away from one another. 

Once it is revealed that Amy is alive it is easy to feel sorry for Nick, but it soon becomes clear that he is a man-child who is just as responsible for this mess as she is. He has drifted through life and developed an amazing ability to whine and moan about the Things Holding Him Back. He loses his job because of the rise of e-magazines and blogs, even though there are still plenty of journalists working for these organizations. Could it be that he is actually not very good as a writer? I think so. We see him spending his life stroking his own ego and occasionally condescending to dispense some of his genius as a written article to his highly unimpressed editor. Believe me, if I had been his editor he would have been the first out of the door when the downsizing came into view.

His attitude to women made me want to kick him in the balls . . . repeatedly. He is so tired of women throwing themselves at him and forcing him to have sex with them. They are so needy and always trying too hard or, if they are bitches, they simply drop him and move on. Poor baby: his life is so hard! He resents Amy for effectively paying for everything and yet he still does not get off his backside and make a serious effort to earn some cash. But it is still her fault that he feels unmanned, so he has to have an affair to make him feel better about himself. Vomit!

So, what about Amy: if Nick is such a total loser, then surely she is the good person that we should support and cheer on as she frames him for her murder? Erm, nope: she is almost exactly as irritating and deserving of physical pain as her errant husband. She is nauseatingly brilliant, beautiful and talented, but that is just a mask to hide the true psychopath lurking underneath. She is utterly ruthless about getting what she wants and nobody, NOBODY, gets away with saying “No!” to her. It is slowly revealed that she is a master manipulator who has destroyed a man by falsely accusing him of rape at least once in her life. She hates and despises all other women for some totally illogical reason and yet she can appear to be quite nice and normal when she wants to.

Basically, I wanted to lock both of them in a room and then burn down the house so that they would not be able to continue their navel-gazing, self-deluding behavior. Oh, and I would have chucked Amy’s amazingly irritating parents in their with them for good luck. It is a terrific read as long as you do not have a problem with wanting to punch many of the characters! :D

Other Reviews

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The Book Smugglers

I read this as part of:

Stealing Shadows by Kay Hooper

My Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

Amazon Rating: 4.30 / 5.00

Goodreads Rating: 4.11 / 5.00

Cassie Neill is ‘gifted’: she can enter most peoples’ minds, sometimes by simple proximity but mostly by making a connection to the person, either by eye-contact or physical touch. She can even reach some people by touching an object that they have held or worn. This makes her invaluable to the LA police as they try to catch a serial killer, but when she makes a mistake a child dies and the killer escapes. In an attempt to seek some peace, Cassie moves to sleepy Ryan’s Bluff, North Carolina, where she has inherited her aunt’s isolated house. However, it seems that murders happen even in the most unlikely of places.

Her first contact relays his fury and determination to kill the woman that he despises. In an effort to save an innocent life, Cassie speaks to the local Sheriff, but he is dismissive of her abilities and she eventually turns to Judge Ben Ryan in the hopes that he will believe her. Then a young woman is murdered and Cassie suddenly finds herself a suspect until she can prove that she is telling the truth. As the killer continues her killing spree, Cassie must work with law enforcement to uncover any clue to his identity, risking her own mental health by sharing his terrifying thoughts.

This is the first in the Bishop / Special Crimes Series, which will reach its fourteenth installment this year. Each book is a stand-alone crime mystery involving a woman with paranormal abilities who must help to catch a deranged serial killer. The common link between all the titles is the presence of Noah Bishop, an FBI Agent from the Special Crimes Unit. However, in this title Bishop does not make his appearance until the second half of the story, which left me wondering about the name of the series and slightly distracted.

However, the story was gripping enough to overcome this distraction and the Ms Hooper’s use of the killer’s Point of View at certain times added to the general air of terror and threat that he generated. The descriptions of Cassie’s experiences inside the heads of both this killer and others were very well done. They had a sense of reality, which overcame the necessary suspension of disbelief required by her abilities. I particularly appreciated that Cassie was not simply a fluffy, special bunny who had a normal life despite of her ability. As with Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse, Cassie is constantly disabled by her ability, which can be as much of a curse as a gift. She shares Sookie’s feelings of separation and isolation, and even finds the same respite in the arms of a man whose mind is silent to her, even when she touches him.

I was worried that Cassie would be revealed to be quite a passive character as soon as it was obvious that this was a Paranormal Romance. However, she is a very strong personality who shows great bravery and determination throughout the plot and does not become a wet blanket as soon as the alpha male becomes evident. As someone who is wary of the Romance genre, I found this a great relief and it greatly increased my enjoyment of the book. There are Romance elements, but these are subtly done and do not reduce the heroine into a mere cipher for our wish fulfillment. Instead, we are shown the development of a strong relationship, in which both parties grow and become greater than the sum of their parts. I also felt that theirs was a relationship that I could actually believe would last into the future: so often, Romance couples make such unlikely coupling that it is almost impossible to imagine them growing old together.

Our hero, Ben, is suitably tall, dark and handsome, but he also has his issues and needs to develop as a character before he can commit to their relationship. I particularly liked his relationship with the Sherriff, which was close and yet suitably male, with a healthy dose of realism to make it more interesting. Indeed Ryan’s Bluff and its inhabitants were well realized and provided a suitably detailed backdrop for the story that unfolded. However, I would have liked certain characters to have been introduced more than a few pages before they were placed in jeopardy. There was one scene in particular where we were given several women converging on the place that we knew would be the scene of the next abduction, and I found that rather heavy handed and melodramatic. It led to a feeling of ‘red shirt syndrome’, where the least known character was obviously the one in danger.

The plot clipped along at a good pace, with plenty of shocks and lots of tension. I was particularly concerned about the dogs that were introduced as guards against the killer. I am one of those people who get more upset about a dog being murdered than a human: I am not sure what that says about me, but it is the truth. After we met them, I was in constant fear that the killer would silence the faithful doggy protector before taking out his chosen victim.

I was especially impressed by the depiction of the relationship between one of the women and her abusive former husband. Although she was only a minor character, I thought that her transition from terrified, powerless victim to newly empowered independent woman was very well done. Her inner turmoil and doubts about facing down her former abuser were inspiring and I particularly loved a scene where she warned him that if anything at all happened to her newly-acquired dog she would hold him responsible. It was very refreshing to see a positive outcome from such a horrible situation.

I am not sure that I feel a desperate need to read more in this series, but as they are all stand-alone titles, I could easily see me picking one up when I need a good solid read with an intriguing plot and strong characterization.

(First published at Not Your Ordinary Book Banter)

Naked In Death by J.D. Robb

My Rating: 3.5 / 5.0

Amazon Rating: 4.40 / 5.00

Goodreads Rating: 4.11 / 5.00

A senator’s granddaughter is killed and Eve Dallas, a New York City Detective, must find the killer. Although it is 2058, technology is not the only way to solve a crime, especially when it involves an impressively organized killer and the political ramifications of uncovering the victim’s secret life as a prostitute. Whilst fighting the Senator’s attempts to steer her investigation, she has to place herself in the mind of a man who hates women and has seemingly unlimited resources at his disposal. Further complicating the situation is the prime suspect, an Irish billionaire called Roarke, who has a shady past but is irresistibly attractive.   

This is the first in the massive In Death series, which will reach title number 37 later this year. Having said that, it reads perfectly well as a stand-alone title, leaving no loose ends dangling or an unwelcome cliffhanger that propels you on to the next installment, which is always welcome in the first title in a series. However, I am not sure that I felt much need to read further into the series, which was a little disappointing as I had expected a strong desire to continue exploring this slightly futuristic world.

The setting is sufficiently distant as to allow for some neat technological advances. Guns have been completely banned, which is a very interesting commentary on modern US culture all in itself, with our heroine haunted by her decision to set her laser to kill a man who had murdered his own daughter rather than simply stunning him. As a Brit living in the US, I was very happy to see this conscious move away from the gun-dependency that often seems to define what it means to be American. The fact that the murder weapon is actually a handgun, which in this time period is a collector’s item, allows some interesting debate about guns and their use as killing weapons, and about how they make their users feel. I do not know where Ms Robb stands on the gun debate, but this book certainly had some intriguing questions to pose about gun usage that were rather refreshing.

We are also shown a society where prostitution has been legalized and is now much less stigmatized than at present. It is still not something that a senator wants his granddaughter to be doing, especially when he takes a right wing, anti-prostitution moral stance. I liked the variety of ‘companions’ that we met: they came from different backgrounds and chose their profession for a variety of reasons. This non-judgmental portrayal of prostitution was a nice change and, although it is fairly stereotypical to use them as victims, they were given a great deal of dignity and were not the usual ‘easy’ prey items that were are often shown. These were real people who could not be seen as disposable or in any way deserving of their terrible fates.

Our heroine, Eve, is a tough woman, but we were not shown her doing the typical ‘struggling in a man’s world’ stuff. However, poor Eve has enough emotional baggage from her childhood to make up for anything that her present life can throw at her. Unfortunately, this presented me with my biggest hurdle to liking this book: the romance with Roarke. I am not a huge fan of the Romance genre, so I will often be disappointed when there is, to my mind, too much romance in a story that would be perfectly interesting without it. In this case, the romance is a massive misstep, in my opinion, and weakens the characterization of Eve to almost breaking point.

At first we are presented with Eve as a tough, independent woman, but as soon as she meets Roarke she starts to trust him for no particularly good reason. Whilst I can understand her unwilling attraction to the man, I find it very difficult to accept her having sex with him so early in their relationship. This is just too ‘Romance’ for me. As she becomes increasingly aware of her abused past, it boggles my mind that she would chose to have sex with any man, let alone one that she hardly knows and who could be a vicious serial killer. This seems to play far too much into the ‘emotion over logic’, ‘your heart knows the truth’ stuff that makes my head ache when I read Romances. It was also accompanied by Roarke being all alpha male and protective, which should have had Eve revolting at his patronizing decisions to ‘help’ her: she is a strong, intelligent, gifted detective so she does not need her boyfriend to solve the case for her! It is not that I disliked Roarke, but I would have been far more interested in their relationship if they had had to deal with her inability to trust men. I wanted to see her slowly learn to let Roarke within her emotional perimeter, but their relationship seemed far too rushed to me and this undermined my enjoyment of the crime aspect of the story.

On the whole, I would have preferred a less ‘satisfying’ ending for the Romance audience that showed a much slower, and realistic, development of the Eve-Roarke relationship. This could then have been continued into the later titles in the series and shown some real growth, whereas Ms Robb really has nowhere to go with them now. I also felt that the Romance elements outweighed the Mystery and Suspense, which weakened Eve as a protagonist and I do not feel the need to explore their later triumphs as he uses his shady connections and immense wealth to help her to solve crimes. This is a shame as the world-building was intriguing and showed how much America could change in a few short decades.

Reviews I Recommend:

The Book Smugglers

Vampire Book Club

172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad

My Rating: 3.5 / 5.0

Amazon Rating: 3.50 / 5.00

Goodreads Rating: 3.48 / 5.00

I read an ARC of this title, which I received from Kristen at Fantasy Cafe. It is also a translation from the original Norwegian.

Due to budget cuts it has been many years since the last man stepped onto the Moon, but now NASA needs to send a new expedition. In order to generate the necessary funds they create a huge media frenzy by holding a worldwide lottery for three places in the lunar lander.

We follow the three winners as they prepare for the journey of a lifetime: Norwegian Mia is hoping to use the publicity to kick start her punk band’s rise to fame, Midori simply wants to get away from her restricted life in Japan while Antoine wants to get as far as possible away from his Parisian girlfriend.  However, NASA is not being truthful about their real reasons for mounting the expedition and once they arrive at the DARLAH 2 Station things go from bad to worse.

This is an intriguing mix of science fiction, mystery and paranormal horror. Right from the start, we know that NASA is concerned about strange radio signals coming from the Moon, and that they have suspicions that there is something non-human already on the satellite. This makes the decision to send three teenagers along for the ride seem all the more cynical and immoral, as they are simply a way to raise the necessary funds.

The teenagers themselves are well drawn and are generally likeable, although they display a suitable amount of teenage selfishness and disgust with their parents and the world in general. This is especially true for Mia, who thinks that the whole idea is lame and is actually entered into the lottery by her parents. The only reason that she decides to go along is to advertise her band, which is suitably grungy and rebellious. Midori is a much sweeter character, although she feels stifled by her culture’s expectations and restrictions. She tries desperately to rebel and be a non-conformist, but in a much gentler way than Mia. Meanwhile, Antoine is the stereotypical Frenchman who has been dumped and is now obsessed by the woman who broke his heart. He is maudlin and rather gallant in a nihilistic kind of way.

Even before we arrive on the Moon there are supernatural events that make us realize that the non-human presence is not friendly. One of the scariest devices that Mr Harstad uses is to show us the reactions of Mr Himmelfarb, who is a patient in a nursing home suffering from severe dementia. He used to work for NASA and is one of the few people who know exactly what happened during the last manned mission. We see his reactions to television reports about the lottery and upcoming return to the Moon, which show such intense terror that we are left in no doubt that the mission is an extremely bad idea.

However, for all the likeable teenagers and intriguing premise, the book does have some major flaws. Some of these are rather small, like the fact that only three teenagers are trained, even though any or all of them could have proven to be unsuitable once they were subjected to zero gravity or any of the other tests. Also, there were no replacements in case of a case of illness, which seemed rather silly: surely the PR department would have realized that having a group of teenagers and then following them ‘Big Brother’ style through training and up to the final selection would have been more captivating for the international audience.

Other problems are more major, such as the uneven pacing. We spend a great deal of time following the teenagers before their selection and then in training, which builds the tension beautifully. However, once we actually get into space things become rushed. On the moon we have hardly arrived at the DARLAH 2 station before we are thrown headlong into a panicked race to the end. There are some major plot holes and examples of characters behaving irrationally, which makes no sense for seasoned astronauts who have been trained for years and have proven to be the most suitable candidates for this very situation. There is also a certain amount of confusion at the end and I did not feel that all the paranormal events were explained in a satisfactory manner. 

Overall I enjoyed reading this title, especially because it was rooted in the real mystery of the Wow! signal. However, I was frustrated by the ending, which did not live up to the suspense of the earlier sections.

Other Reviews I Recommend:

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