Homegrown Terrorism Comes from Us in Nelson DeMille’s “Wild Fire”

While going through a book cart outside of a local used bookstore, I came upon a paperback of “Wild Fire” by Nelson DeMille. It was one of those pay whatever you want book carts, so I paid a quarter. Growing up on Long Island, I was aware of the author. He was a minor fixture there. Most of his books take place on Long Island, and he was a regular at Long Island’s major bookstore, Book Review. When I was a teenager, I was going through a phase of reading science fiction and fantasy, so his page turning mysteries didn’t really hold much interest for me. However, I decided years later to pick up his 2006 novel in paperback, as I should give him a shot and might even see some locations in the book I have been to myself.

                I must say I liked the book even though the main character is a bit cartoonish. It was compelling enough to get me through 710 pages. John Corey, the detective at the center of the book and a member of an anti-terrorism force in New York City, married to his boss, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, are charming. The plot is about both a murder mystery and a conspiracy by a group of right wing nut jobs in upstate New York. However, this is not by any means a liberal novel. There is no way in hell John Corey voted Democrat, but because this was written so long ago, I would doubt John Corey voted for Trump either. He’s an old school Republican. A bit rough around the edges but not exactly a monster either.

                The novel has an agent named Henry Muller in upstate New York in some third person chapters followed by chapters in the first person narrated by John Corey. He is spying on a hunting club in upstate New York. However, he is caught by a guy at the club, an oil executive named Maddox. He uncovers a plot in which Maddox might commit terrorism, along with a group of other older men at the club. They want to set off bombs in various American cities, blame it on the nation of Islam, which would trigger a response by the American government. Then a war would start with them, wiping them out and thus, in theory, ending the terrorist threat. The plan is well thought out, and while it’s a terrible plan, I can’t say it isn’t devilishly smart. Henry Muller, the agent, understands that they want to strike back after 9/11, but he also has a keen understanding that the whole plot is also pure insanity and in no way is realistic or even worthy of doing. Muller winds up dead on club grounds shortly after his discovery.

                John Corey is called in, with his wife Kate, to investigate the murder and uncover what’s really going on in the club. If you can excuse the chauvinism of Corey’s narration, I think the reader will enjoy this book. The chauvinism might even grow on you if you don’t take the main character and narrator too seriously. However, what makes the book really work is DeMille’s ability to weave together a murder mystery and a bigger conspiracy. DeMille does this well without the book feeling clunky. That is impressive from a narrative standpoint. I also like how Corey understands and even likes the villain a bit. If Maddox wasn’t such a nut job, he says he would almost like to go camping with the guy.

                What doesn’t quite work, and this isn’t unusual for such a research heavy novel, is some of the references don’t really work anymore. There is constant talk of a possible war with Iraq, Rumsfeld, and 9/11. While in the author’s note, DeMille mentions the novel takes place in the year 2002 and considering we as readers have knowledge that the war in Iraq wasn’t exactly successful, it doesn’t quite work for a current reader. Also, the whole constant mentions of 9/11 start to feel like a bit much. Yes, it’s believable Corey and his wife working in the New York metro area would be affected by it and know people affected and lost. However, that all dates the novel.

I liked John Corey and his wife, who seem like fun characters. His wife, despite being married to a man’s man, also tends to put him in his place. She constantly reminds him she is his boss, despite all his macho nonsense. It works for the most part despite some outdated parts. It didn’t feel overly long, which is a complaint I had with the last Stephen King novel. At 710 pages, that is a good thing. Most of the novel ironically takes place in upstate New York, so I didn’t get a ton of Long Island locations in this one, except for a drive through the North Fork earlier in the novel. You can excuse the novel that is so unapologetic about being a man’s man novel. I’m not saying the book can’t be read by women, but in today’s world, some of the lines Corey delivers might be considered cringeworthy. However, the plot is too good and twisty for you not to want to read the book. Not all the novel quite works, but it’s a good read.

Both Bombs and Emotions Explode in John Sandford’s “Shock Wave”

I was looking for a mystery to read at work and it’s been several years since I read a John Sandford novel. I picked up his new one with a character by the name of Virgil Flowers called “Deep Freeze”. I read it fast, and it was a solid mystery. A month or two later I was at a local church sale and I saw a few more Virgil Flowers novels there. I decided to pick up a couple of the small hardcovers all featuring him. I started with the 2011 Virgil Flowers novel “Shock Wave”. In this one, a “Wal Mart” like store called PyeMart is being opposed by a town which fears it would ruin a town of mostly small mom and pop shops. In the opening, it’s not the store that is bombed but the corporate headquarters. This sets up a series of bombs in other places throughout the book.

    Virgil Flowers is called in to investigate by his boss Lucas Devenport (of Sandford’s famed “Prey” mystery novel series) and needs to find who is planting these bombs. He goes to the small town of Mankato, surrounded by farms and highways in rural Minnesota. While there he interviews some locals, including a pharmacist, a fisherman and other quirky people. Flowers always seems to go to small towns in Minnesota to solve his cases. Poor guy. Meanwhile, his love life isn’t going great, as it never does, as his on and off again girlfriend seems to be carving a life for her and her kids in California. Even Flowers says why would someone want to come back to Minnesota after living in California? That isn’t really the focus of the book, as the focus of almost every Sandford novel is the mystery. Sandford writes very straight forward mysteries, and at times, you feel like you are watching an episode of “Law and Order” in print form, but in Minnesota instead of New York.

     All this leads Sandford is a local teacher and his wife. At first, this all seems like they are a suspect, as the local teacher is sleeping with another teacher, who is not his wife. However, like most Sandford mysteries, who seems like the suspect at first isn’t. This leads to the town board, and a chance that there was a payoff to them, which would explain why the bomb was at corporate headquarters a hundred miles away outside of the town. The trail leads him to another group of suspects at a local community college. That would make sense, because one of the professors knows how to make bombs, but there’s evidence another teacher has a garage with bomb making tools. However, they suspect those tools could have been planted. It’s a twisty story and I won’t give away who it ends up being.

    Virgil Flowers is a good character. He’s flawed, but not in a bad way. He’s been married three times, but he’s not abusive. He makes a point to say he just falls in love too easily. He believes in God. He has a boat. He’s good looking. He is in high demand for his line of work. He also is a civil service employee who takes pictures and writes magazine articles on the side. What’s not to like? He’ll probably get married again and again until something finally clicks. He’s a bit complicated, is what I’m saying, but not in a bad way. He’s also good at putting together the clues to solve a mystery. The books of Sandford are compulsively readable, and the pages just fly by. I guess the one real criticism I have of Sandford is sometimes his stories feel a little too dense in terms of being about the mystery. He has good characters, and you might want a little more depth talking about their lives.

    However, Sandford’s top goal seems to be talking about the mystery. This one isn’t a bad one. I was surprised who the villain ended up being, as he seems like a good guy throughout the book, and at the end, turns into a total bastard. However, a twist is a good sign of a good mystery. There seems to be more than Virgil Flowers than solving crimes. Sandford is a better mystery novelist than say, James Patterson or Dan Brown, which isn’t saying much but still, isn’t a bad thing either.

     Though, like Nelson DeMille’s John Corey, James Patterson’s Alex Cross and Robert B Parker’s Spencer, a key part of writing detective is they need to be somewhat likable even if they are a bit rough around the edges. The guy solving the mystery is the good guy. Flowers is likable, and I even have more books to read about him and his adventures. Also, the whole plot of bombing a big business is timely due to economic anxiety, and I like how Irving Flowers doesn’t feel a bomb in the name of either a right or left agenda is justified. Wrong is wrong. It’s a good read, but also forgettable enough you won’t spend a ton of time thinking about it after you read it, as the case with most of John Sandford’s novels. Unless, of course, you are blogging about the novel, in which case, you are thinking about it.

Bill Clinton and James Patterson's “The President Is Missing” Is A Solid Read (Really)

It’s almost an oxymoron to review a James Patterson book, as there is so many of them and they aren’t really books people review. However, this one is a bit different, because it’s co-authored by former president Bill Clinton. I put the book on request at the library, figuring how could I resist? I expect perhaps a standard James Patterson with a little insider knowledge thrown in by Clinton. However, with a gifted wordsmith like Clinton co-writing, Patterson too upped his game. It’s not to say the book doesn’t have the usual things that make a Patterson novel eyerolling, including chapters going back and fourth between first and third person, some cheesy dialogue and scenes are just too much like  action movies without any real value to the rest of the story. Patterson is one of the rare authors who is not quite as good as those who knocked off his style. However, I was surprised to find the book was a solid read.

                Now, I should put a warning before I even review the book. I like James Patterson. His books are utter addictive, no matter how ridiculous they might get. However, the guy writes solid mysteries and he’s a master at formatting. If you are bored at work, and you just don’t feel like trudging towards chapters, his two-page chapters will do the trick. Patterson and Clinton’s thriller are about a widowed president (don’t read into that), with a female vice president (don’t read into that either). However, the president who isn’t Clinton but is named Johnathan Duncan, who is literally a cross between Bill Clinton, John McCain and Jack Reacher. A president who isn’t super young, but younger than Clinton and has served in Iraq. When the book opens, he’s getting grilled by a Newt Gringrich type figure named Lester Rhodes. He wants to impeach the president. Once again, I’m already telling you to stop overthinking this novel even as I write this review.

                Yet, the reason he wants to impeach the president is because the president is trying to deal with a terrorist threat and tried to do so personally. As president Duncan tries to deal with both an opposing party senate and everything going on with the terrorist threat building against the country, he finds a source in a foreign woman who approached his daughter while she was vacationing. The foreign women and her boyfriend are warning President Duncan about a cyber threat that will be unleashed by a foreign power that will destroy all of America’s finances and defense systems. Through the book, little tidbits about insider knowledge are dropped about being president, including even stuff that reminds you why you don’t entirely hate the Clintons even if they can be problematic.

                As things build, the president goes rogue and is literally missing, as a bomb explodes at a baseball game. That’s when the James Patterson type action that feels almost like you are reading a movie sets in. The chapters are mostly the first person, but the Patterson tradition of going between first and third comes in. I usually find first and third person switch offs to be lazy writing. Awhile back I read a acclaimed British crime novel, and every other chapter was either a first or third person point of view. I just gave up on it because it got to be annoying. However, Patterson’s chapters are so short that you don’t really care. If you are reading a book to care a whole lot, you shouldn’t be reading a James Patterson novel.

                However, some of the writing feels like it lifts above the usual flat proses of a Patterson novel, and you may find yourself wondering who wrote this chapter, Patterson or Clinton? Things get good in this novel when the president realizes even as he’s dealing with the terrorists and there’s a traitor within his own inner circle. The twists and turns are illegitimately good. The thriller author Nelson DeMille once said he got a nice note from Clinton when he was president, praising his novels. Clinton was known even as president for loving mysteries and page turners. You can tell throughout this book that Clinton is relishing the whole experience just writing a straight up page turning novel, and the truth is he isn’t bad at all.

                I’m not going to say this is great literature, and for what it is, it’s a solid read. You might even have read it if it didn’t have the names Bill Clinton and James Patterson on the cover, and that’s a very good thing. Towards the end of the book, there is a chapter where the fictional president gives a speech, and it’s literally a Clinton speech. Oh, sure it starts out addressing the book’s events, and why the president needed to do what he needed to do. However, it goes into the usual Clinton agenda, which I don’t totally disagree with, but it seems kind of out of places in the book and goes on a couple pages too long without even a pause. However, I can’t say it’s bad. There are even moments that can be described as charming and have a genuine love for the better parts of America. Patterson and Clinton give a solid mystery with the president of the United States as an action hero in all around decent way. it’s a shame people won’t read it because they feel one way or the other about Clinton, because it’s not really such a bad read.

Stephen King's “The Outsider” Is Good but A Bit Off as Well

Ever enjoy a book but feel it is a bit off? That’s the way I felt about Stephen King’s new novel “The Outsider”. This is his first book this year. His second book coming out is a short novel called “Elevation”. “The Outsider” feels a bit like a recycling of King’s classic 1987 horror novel “It”. “Elevation”, from what I read, sounds a bit like King’s 1984 novel “Thinner”, which he published under the pen name “Richard Bachman”. “The Outsider” also feels like a crime drama, a pitch from a spin off series featuring Holly from King’s excellent “Bill Hodges” trilogy, and at times, it even felt like an action-packed James Patterson novel. If Stephen King reads this review, which I doubt, I’m sorry I’m comparing you and Patterson. I’m also sorry to James Patterson. I like his work too, but like King, there is too much of it, so a lot of King and Patterson is hit or miss. However, maybe that’s the point. Stephen King writes a lot. James Patterson puts his name on a lot, but I’m not sure how much he really writes these days. Now just about every single Stephen King novel is better than a James Patterson novel, however you get my point. Going back to Stephen King however, the point I’m making is this book sometimes felt like he had a couple unfinished manuscripts and threw them together. However, it also at times, felt like the classic children’s horror novel “Caroline” by Neil Gaiman. Not to give anything anyway, but there is a ghost with straws for eyes, haunting people, and I felt flashbacks to the famous scenes from Gaiman’s famous children’s horror novel where Caroline’s alterative universe parents had buttons for eyes.

                However, I knew something was off when King randomly introduced Holly from the Bill Hodges trilogy into the book. Now, I read all three of the Bill Hodges books, and it’s an excellent series. The first two books are great. The last book suffers from a supernatural twist which didn’t make sense with the rest of the books, and in a way, “The Outsider” does that too. There’s a very important scene towards the end which doesn’t feel like it had the impact it should on me, the reader. Let’s talk a bit about the actual plot, which doesn’t have a bad set up. Then again, King is a master of set ups, and that hasn’t changed even in his later career. A heinous crime has taken place. A boy is found dead and raped, and partly eaten. For those who are regular readers of King, the whole part eaten part doesn’t really raise an eyebrow. Throwing in something totally bizarre is King’s trademark

The police are ready to arrest the beloved little league coach and English teacher Terry Maitland, who seems to be an all-around good guy. They have iron clad proof, however. They get ready to make a big public arrest. This first part of the novel has transcripts with witnesses, plus they have fingerprints, and they are even excited to put him on death row. This is Flint City Oklahoma, an unusual setting for a Stephen King novel. Hicks exist in most Stephen King novels. However, these hicks are special. They aren’t northeast hicks. They are middle America hicks, and the police happily tell Terry Mailand about the needle and the death penalty without a lawyer present. The police chief Ralph Anderson truly is excited to arrest Terry Mailand, like it’s a treat for him. Yup, we really are in Trump country this time.

                However, like most King novels, there’s a twist. Terry Mailand was at a conference for English teachers in another part of the state, and there is even a video tape of him asking a question of a famous author which played on public access cable. The tape was timed at the same time of the murder. Both him doing the crime and him not doing the crime both check out, and that’s a good twist. However, this is a Stephen King novel and what would it be without a twist that throws the entire concept of reality out the window. So, it sets up the premise of how could of done it and could not have done it all at the same time. There is over two hundred eighty pages all taking place in the small city in Oklahoma. Then out of nowhere, a phone call is placed, and he get Holly from the Bill Hodges series on the case.

                Now, I like Holly. She is an anxiety prone, anti-depressant taking women who truly loved Bill despite the age difference and is keeping his business going. She is a very likable creation.  Bill, Holly and Jarmone from the Bill Hodges trilogy were the most likable characters Stephen King had created in years. However, in this book, Jarmone, the young African American teen who helps Bill and Holly throughout the Hodges trilogy is on vacation, so we won’t see him in this book. Bill, as people who read the trilogy knows, died of cancer at the end of the Bill Hodeges series which they mention in this book as well. I was a bit conflicted about this surprise when reading it. On one hand, it was great to see Holly, see how she’s doing, but on the other hand, what was she doing randomly in this book? Yes, it was good to see her again but this whole book had been setting up its own universe for over two hundred eighty pages, so this felt very out of left field. Hodges was some of King’s best work in many years, but still, this felt disjointed after so many pages in this separate novel.

The book felt a bit too long. This isn’t new to regular readers of King. There are some padding problems, where you might get a hundred plus pages you don’t really need. The first part of the book is about the aftermath of Terry’s arrest. The effect on him, his friends, the family whose child was murdered, and the police trying to piece together if they went right or wrong in the first place. Then the second half turns into a pitch for a spin off from the Bill Hodges trilogy, then the last part the whole team goes to Texas to confront a supernatural monster. Out of nowhere, there’s a twist about Mexican folk law, and while I was still reading, as King has the J.K. Rowling magic touch of you will read this no matter what, the whole monster felt out of left field. However, I am not going to say you shouldn’t read this new book by Stephen King, as it still is a good page turner. However, I would suggest the Bill Hodges trilogy over this tome which is 576 pages. However, like this book, the third Bill Hodges book “End of Watch” has a twist which makes no sense.