"The Prince of Tides" is a Gem

 

Southern fiction is a genre which never lets me down. It’s produced such great storytellers as Harper Lee, Cormac McCarthy and the legendary Mark Twain. Another legendary writer in the southern tradition is Pat Conroy. Conroy’s 1986 novel “The Prince of Tides” is another classic of the southern tradition.

The novel is told from the point of view of Tom Wingo, a local high school coach with a wife and three young daughters. He loves his daughters, but he is also having marriage problems with his wife who reveals to him she is having an affair. This isn’t the main story of the novel, though. Tom’s history and how it affects his sister, Savannah who is in a mental hospital, and hallucinating is the main story. She is a poet in New York City and is a classic case of someone who comes to the big city wanting to escape small town life. Tom meets with her psychiatrist, Susan Lowestein. Lowenstein is a New Yorker through and through, while Tom is a southern boy. This could set up what seemed like a culture clash, but they are united in their desire to help Tom’s sister. Even more that that it seems. There is an instant attraction Tom has to Susan.

The history Tom tells Susan of the Wingo family is wide reaching and unusual. The Wingo family is a family who can’t seem to do anything normally. There’s the story of Tom’s grandmother who travelled the world, his Bible thumbing salesman of a grandfather, his mom who wants everything to appear good on the outside while everything is breaking apart and his father who is constantly trying to hit the big time instead of being a simple shrimp boatsman. These are classic American archetypes.

The Wingo siblings, Tom, Luke and Savannah, lived a rather unusual and in some ways, perfectly typical childhood. There is a rather shocking scene in their later teens of a brutal assault. The book goes back and forth between the adulthood and childhood of the Wingo family, and while there are lighter moments sprinkled throughout the book, there’s also a lot of traumas in there as well. Dysfunctional families are an area Conroy obviously knew well, and it shows in this book, and other books by him like his later novel “South of Broad”.

However, dysfunction and trauma aren’t the only things in Conroy’s books. There’s also a lot of charm. Conroy’s writing was known for being lush and that doesn’t change here. Conroy could really write. Stories of Tom being a football player, a road trip the kids took to Florida, and his sister trying on a dress when she became a older teenager are all charming.  Conroy writes lovingly of both the American south and New York City from an outsider’s point of view. Even though this is a long book, Conroy keeps the story going with multiple stories of the Wingo family and their various adventures. Later in the book, Luke becomes the focus and his defense of his hometown from developers trying to pay off the residents. While this could in the hands of a lesser writer feels tacked on, with Conroy, it doesn’t.

“The Prince of Tides” is well deserving of the critical acclaim it received back at it’s time of publication, and I was engrossed by the Wingo family and their various traumas and adventures. It’s a beautifully written novel and an adult one, as well. I understand why so many people love this book. It’s not only solid southern fiction, but also an honest reflection on childhood, adulthood, mental illness and the complications that come with family. No one seemed to explore this better than Pat Conroy did.

 

"Texas Ranger" Doesn't Crack The Case

 

I figured a book with the title “Texas Ranger” on the cover would be a fun read, and it wasn’t a bad read. It was a fun enough read, but the problem with this book is the central character, Texas Ranger Rory Yates isn’t that good a detective. After his ex-wife is murdered, Rory becomes obsessed with the idea that her boyfriend, Cal is the killer, and that’s it. He doesn’t really dig further than that. While the book did keep me turning pages, with its short chapters and somewhat compelling narrative, I still can’t recommend this book due to me not having any faith in the main character solving the murder.

Rory just sounds like a whiney high school kid, yet he’s in his mid-30s. The actual writing of the book isn’t bad, but the main character in insufferable and breaks a ton of laws taking this murder case into his own hands. Rory goes to the crime scene without permission, even at one point, driving from Texas to New Jersey to accuse Cal of the murder, as Cal is a truck driver.

The problem is Rory is a hothead. There’s also a subplot about Rory trying to decide between two women, Sara Beth who is his high school sweetheart and attractive local longue signer named Willow. There’s also another sub plot about Rory’s dad having cancer, but he only tells Rory and hides it from the rest of his family. The subplot about Rory’s various relationships becomes relevant with a twist at the end of the book. However, if I’m going to read a book about a guy solving an case, I want him to solve and not the events of the book. I want the guy I’m reading about to solve the case, and that’s the problem with “Texas Ranger”.

On a side note, this book did get me interested in why Texas has rangers while the rest of the country doesn’t. According to what I read, Texas Rangers have been around since 1835, and they still uphold this tradition. However, the idea was for these Rangers to defend then new republic of Texas from Native American and Mexican attacks. So, the actual root of Texas Rangers was racist sounding. I’m not trying to go all woke here in my review, but when you have a modern police force, why does Texas still need Rangers and why keep something with a racist history so alive in the first place? But I’m getting off subject.

“Cross” Is an Alright Alex Cross Novel

 

“Cross” is the 12^th book in the Alex Cross series, a series I’ve been reading on and off for years. You don’t have to read them in order, but you must know a bit about Alex Cross’s history. Alex Cross is a widower and it’s important to his character, and he’s a committed family man. Sometimes Cross comes off like such a saint, a bit too wholesome for a detective.  In this novel, Alex Cross is after the man he thinks might have killed his wife, a serial killer and rapist simply known as the Butcher by local police enforcement. The man is named Michael Sullivan, and is by the look of it from outsiders, a family man.

This isn’t a bad set up, and in the first half of the novel, you get an extended prologue recounting Cross’s life with his wife and her eventual murder. This isn’t poorly done. The book gets a little ridiculous when the killer/rapist goes to other parts of the world to carry out hired killings. It seems a bit over the top. He even takes photographs of his rape victims after he is done with them. One of the things Patterson tends to do is make his villains a so over the top, that it leads to you to question how this person can even be real. However, he also gives some reasoning in this novel to why Michael Sullivan is so evil, flashing back to his abusive father.

Alex Cross tends to have his usual drama, with his grandmother, Mama Nana, telling Cross he needs to quite the force to better look after his children. The book has its usual narration style, going back and forth from the third person point of view following the villain around, and Cross’s narration of things going on in his life. Cross quits the force for a while and starts to be a private practice therapist. Though, Cross being Cross, he does bend some ethical boundaries to help his patients.

One of the problems I did have with this book is for a book titled Cross, we do spend a lot more time following around the killer. It’s like Patterson isn’t sure Alex Cross is an interesting enough character to follow for the whole book. I eventually wanted to get back to Alex Cross and his search for his wife’s killer, with his partner, Sampson. All in all, not a bad page turner. It’s your typical Patterson novel with the short chapters and action-packed scenes. As with all Patterson’s, you’ll read it, enjoy it and forget it when you turn the last page.

 

 

Did This Book Predict COVID? I Don't Know But It's A Solid Page Turner

The cover of the reprint of Dean Koontz’s 1981 novel “The Eyes of Darkness” askes the question: Did this thriller predict the coronavirus virus? In some ways it did, but that revelation doesn’t come until towards the end of the book. Most of the novel is a thriller, and like a lot of Dean Koontz novels, it’s a chase novel. The book starts with a showgirl named Tina Evans, who is divorced after her son supply died in a bus crash after a field trip. However, that notion that her son is dead starts to come into question when random messages that he’s not dead starts to come to her through various supernatural means. She starts to see on a chalk board in her deceased son’s room that he isn’t dead, a comic book that eerily matches her dreams and a song that plays in a diner that starts to skip to the same lyrics repeatedly. Tina starts to think maybe her son isn’t dead after all.

She meets a lawyer named Elliot, who at first thinks she’s just a grieving mother who is losing her mind, but he becomes convinced that maybe she is onto something when two mysterious men show up at his house, trying to drug him with a shot in his arm. Maybe Tina’s son is alive, and the government is trying to cover this up for some reason. The two men who show up in his house are creepy and had me wondering what exactly they were doing there.

They end up going on a trip up to the mountains where the field trip took place and find there’s a conspiracy surrounding Tina’s son. I got some Stranger Things type vibes from this book, though the government conspiracy and romance between Tina and Elliot came off a bit cheesy. There’s also some crazy stuff about government funds being misdirected towards secret projects instead of the intended use. There are also some dated references, as reasoning that the period this book took place was strange enough to cover up children being used as experiments.  What doesn’t date the book is the prediction of the COVID virus which comes off well.

However, Koontz is still good at pacing his books, and while this book does come off a bit dated, it’s still a solid page turner.

"The Guardians" is a Solid Grisham Novel

 

“The Guardians” by John Grisham is a solid legal thriller, with a slightly different twist from the other Grisham novels. The main character, Cullen Post, isn’t just a lawyer but he’s also an Episcopal priest who works at a non-profit called Guardian Ministries. The main goal of the ministry is helping wrongly accused people get out of prison by getting him or her a new trial. His new case is about a 20-year-old year murder of a lawyer and the man wrongly accused of his murder, Quincy Miller. Miller is an African American man who was convicted by a largely white jury in Florida and was speared the death penalty by one vote. However, new evidence suggests he didn’t do the crime, and it’s up to Cullen Post to collect the evidence and convince the state of Florida to re-examine the case.

For the most part, this novel is told in the first person, which is well written. However, Grisham occasionally slips into third person narration in a couple scenes. James Patterson does this a lot in his books, but I have yet to see this in a Grisham novel. I don’t usually like novels that go between first and third person in their narratives, because I think it’s a lazy device. However, it doesn’t happen too much in this novel, so I was fine with it.

There’s a lot of side plots in this novel, with Post talking about his reasons for becoming a priest, and his unusual life choices. This being a Grisham novel, though, the story mostly stays focused on the case.

You can tell this is a cause close to Grisham’s personal point of view.  Grisham in real life has made the wrongly accused his cause, working and promoting the Innocence Project and even co-authoring a nonfiction book on people who have been wrongly accused. Grisham has also been publicly against the death penalty.

This book is a solid page turner, as are all Grisham novels. You want to know if Quincy Miller gets off his jail term or not, and while you can probably tell how this is going to end, you will also continuously keep turning pages. This novel does take you in some directions you don’t see coming, and is well worth the read, as are most Grisham novels.

"The Housemaid's Secret" Isn't A Bad Pageturner But Feels Like A Rerun

 

“The Housemaid’s Secret” isn’t bad, but it’s also a bit repetitive. It’s almost exactly like the first book. The writing I would say is serviceable. Millie is still like a female Jack Reacher, except Jack Reacher is smarter than her. Reacher would have been able to figure out how not to land in jail. I have nothing against a female Jack Reacher. Dean Koontz tried a female Jack Reacher in his “Jane Hawk” series, with mixed results.

Millie, as we know from the last book, is a housekeeper who also fights for abused women, helping them getting to safety and bending the law when necessary. There’s nothing wrong with this type of set up for a thriller. The problem is that Millie isn’t very smart at times. I wish the author, Frida McFadden, set up some more clues in the book. I don’t like when mysteries and thrillers dump a twist on the reader without set up.

There’s also a subplot that she is involved with the Italian gardener from the first book. Millie mentions he’s hot, but she’s also involved with a boyfriend, a good-looking lawyer type who can’t seem to figure out something is off about her. Brock can’t be a very good lawyer if he can’t figure out this obvious secret Millie is hiding.

The novel is somewhat predictable, and as a page-turner, it’s a solid one. It’s easy to read and you’ll continue to turn pages. However, it’s not the best thriller. The first book is slightly better, if only because you don’t feel like you’re reading a repeat of it.

"Neon Pray" Is Pretty Good But A Bit Of A Chase Novel

 

“Neon Prey” isn’t bad but it’s a bit of a chase novel. You know right away who the criminal is, and it’s up to John Sandford’s reoccurring hero, Lucas Devenport, to track him and his criminal friends down. It’s not all that different than other Devenport novels, except for the new location: Las Vegas. Most of Sandford’s novels take place in his hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In this one, the gang of criminals are basically robbers, going around wealthy parts of Las Angles, threatening and robbing anyone unlucky enough to encounter them. What makes this group more sinister however, is a nasty twist. One of them is a cannibal, who has killed and eaten multiple people, including children. While the novel does spear us the graphic details of exactly how this cannibal committed his crimes, it does tell us what he did. He could be facing the death penalty if he is caught, and the other in the group face charges, but lesser ones.

This book is, like all Sandford thrillers, a solid page turner. If I was a little more critical, I would say Sandford introduces a ton of new cops and investigators in the new setting of Las Vegas, and it tends to feel like too many characters. I lost track, between the new good guys and the group of bad guys, who is who.

However, it’s still a good read. Sandford is one of our accessible thriller and mystery writers, and he will keep you turning those pages. I’ve been reading Sandford for a lot of years, and I still find his work a thrilling ride worth reading.