"Never Flinch" is Mid Tier Stephen King

 

I never have read a truly bad Stephen King novel, but his novels tend to be good or mid teir. This one falls into the mid tear category. “Never Flinch” is the newest Stephen King novel about his private eye Holly Gibney, who we all met back in 2014, as a supporting character in his novel “Mr. Mercedes”. Holly has obviously become Stephen King’s favorite character, as she has appeared in six of his novels. Holly seems to face off against both supernatural and regular forces., She face a supernatural threat in the 2018 novel “The Outsider” , but in most of these novels she appears in, Holly faces off against evil that is more down to earth, like serial killers and kidnappers.

In this novel, Holly is facing down two cases. On one end, she is helping her police officer friend, Izzy, face off against a serial killer who has connected his killings to a trial case gone wrong, killing people and leaving the jurors name on top of their dead bodies. On the other end, she is hired to become a bodyguard for a feminist who is making a name for herself on the lecture circuit. These aren’t bad plots. I’ve read other mystery and thriller novelists who love to have two cases take up a novel. I would assume it makes it easier to fill up a novel if there are two mysteries to be solved.

Holly is still a good character, yet her becoming a bodyguard doesn’t make a ton of sense. Kate McKay wants a woman to be her bodyguard, instead of a man. Being an activist for women’s rights, she doesn’t want to be seen as needing a man’s protection. She is being stalked by a mysterious man who hates her pro-choice activism, and at one point, even pepper sprays her personal assistant.

The problem is Holly is often described as a small woman, and though she might be a great private eye, I’m not sure she would be a great bodyguard. She even at point downloads an e-book on how to be a bodyguard.

Then there’s the other plot about the case involving the serial killer, who is killing people because of a case involving child pornography. The evidence was planted on the defendant’s computer, but an overly eager D.A. railroaded him, and he ends up being killed in prison. The killer, who we are introduced to at the beginning of the novel, calls himself Trig, though that isn’t his real name. For most the novel, we really don’t know why he is killing people because of this case.

This isn’t a bad Stephen King novel, but it tends to have too much going on. I kept waiting for the two cases to connect, but they only slightly do. There’s also another subplot about a pop star, that doesn’t add much to the main plot.

There’s a lot going on in this book, and it’s not a bad read, but it’s not one of Stephen King’s best novels. Readers online have been divided on what King sees in this Holly character, and while she’s not a bad character, it seems kind of weird he keeps going back to her. I get the sense King always wanted to write crime novels, as his proses do often have a pulpy flavour to them. Even at one point in the novel, he names drops a book by John Sandford, who is famous for this kind of mystery and thriller books the Holly series are trying to be like. Not to say I don’t like when King drops his supernatural bag of tricks and decides to try to write more to down earth horrors. He has done that well in the past, and he doesn’t do it so bad either here. Either way, this review is kind of mixed.

A lot of people also point out how political Stephen King’s novels have become. A lot of novelists I read have gotten political lately, some on the right, some on the left, but that doesn’t bother me too much. Writing can be largely a personal thing, and even fiction writing is going to warrant some of your viewpoints going into the story. I know that annoys a lot of people, but I find it happens when someone is writing a longer piece like a novel. This is solid mid teir King.

"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.