Book Review: Gone by Mo Hayder

Gone

Author: Mo Hayder

Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Pages: 416 (NOOK Edition: 396)) 

Publication Date: February 1, 2011 

      Mo Hayder is a British mystery and thriller author who has written eight novels to much acclaim.  Gone is the fifth in a series featuring Detective Jack Caffery and was selected by the Mystery Writers of America as the 2012 Edgar Award Winner for best mystery novel.  I usually tend to agree with the Mystery Writers, but not in this case.

     Gone follows Detective Caffery's investigation of several car-jackings.  These are far from routine auto thefts, however, because in each case a young girl is in the car when it is stolen.  The need to find these children as quickly as possible adds another dimension of tension to an already nerve-wracking story.  There are several sub-plots working here as well which make the plot a bit more involved than it need be.  

     The story is told from Jack Caffery's perspective as he chases down false leads and tries to find connections between the seemingly unrelated crimes.  There are many other characters involved, including other police, parents of the abducted children, witnesses and persons of interest.  Caffery is portrayed as a tortured, lonely soul who labors under the weight of unsolved crimes and feelings of inadequacy.  There isn't much back story to substantiate these feelings except for one unsolved missing celebrity case which he suspects may involve one of his co-workers.  (I haven't read the other four books in this series, so maybe the reasons for Caffery's angst is in those.)  With each new crime in the series the tension is ratcheted up, but a whole new set of players are introduced.  I think the plot is weighted down by too many minor characters.

     The author does a tremendous job of using setting as a method of creating atmosphere and tension.  There is a creepy abandoned wharehouse, a railroad tunnel and lots of lonely English countrysides searched which add a lot to the menacing tone of the entire novel.  Here is one paragraph as an example of this.  A female detective is inspecting an area near where one of the stolen cars had been abandoned:

     "She went to the old water tank where she had been standing and switched off the torch.  She waited for a few quiet moments, surrounded by the monster shapes of the winter trees, beyond them the ploughed fields stretching away, dull, immense and dead.   From somewhere in the distance to her right came the giant sound of a train racing along the Great Western Union Railway, flying through the darkness."

     The strength of this book is the descriptions of setting and place.  The weaknesses, in my opinion, come from too many characters which aren't developed to any great degree, a plot which becomes weighted down by all of these characters and has too many unresolved secondary stories and, finally, a criminal whose motivation doesn't really fit the magnitude of his crimes.  Gone is very worth reading for mystery fans and is much better than more hyped mystery fiction (e.g, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn).  I just don't agree with the Mystery Writers of America that this was the best mystery novel published in 2011.

Book Review: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl

By Gillian Flynn

     This novel has been touted as “one of the best books of the summer” by Amazon.com and was recently called a “publishing phenomenon” by “The Huffington Post”.   This is the third novel for Ms. Flynn.  Her first, Sharp Objects was nominated for and Edgar Award for best first novel in 2007.  I read that one and liked it for its unique main character:  a troubled teenager who suffered self-inflicted lacerations in response to stress and depression.  I decided to read Gone Girl, anticipating from all of the hype that this would be the book that placed this author into the category of a “must-read” author.

     

      Unfortunately, for many reasons, this book just didn’t resonate with me.  The plot is interesting enough, but there are so many improbabilities and ridiculous twists that it quickly becomes pretty unbelievable.   The basic story is that Amy Dunne disappears from her home on her fifth wedding anniversary.  Her husband Nick returns home mid-day and finds the living room in disarray indicating signs of a struggle.  The police are called and an investigation begins.  Nick, of course, becomes suspect #1 (the husband always is).  Nick professes his innocence but inconsistencies in his story and further forensic evidence places him under increasing suspicion.  The story is told in the first person by Nick and Amy in alternating chapters.  Nick tells the story from the disappearance onward and Amy’s chapters are in the form of diary entries relating her flawed marriage.  I’ve never been a fan of flashbacks as a vehicle for back story, especially when it is presented in diary format.  There are other contemporaneous Amy chapters which show a completely different person from the sweet, beautiful, rapturously in-love Amy of the diary entries.  (Plot spoiler: Amy isn’t dead, but the reader figures that out pretty fast.) 

    

      It’s really hard to like any of the characters in this book.  The two main characters are egotistical, manipulating and not trustworthy.  The minor characters are almost cartoonishly stereotypical, including the Barney Fife local police, Nick’s twin sister named Go who helps Nick run a bar (think of Marisa Tomei in “My Cousin Vinny” and you know this character), Amy’s parents who are both child psychologists and made a fortune writing children’s books about a perfect child named (are you ready?) “Amazing Amy” and a Nancy Grace clone who represents all that is bad in tabloid media.

     

     My other problem with this book is the gratuitous use of profanity which just isn’t necessary to tell the story.  I guess the author is trying to accurately display Nick’s frustration levels, but I think that could be conveyed without every other word being an “F-Bomb”.   I also dislike the author constantly telling us what the characters are thinking, rather than showing us through narrative.  This happens a lot in the diary sections but is also prevalent throughout the entire novel.  The resolution of the story is so unrealistic that it is laughable.

     

      If Gone Girl is indeed “one of the best books of the summer” then what a sad summer it is.  After reading this I decided to revisit some classics.  I’m now working through some Ray Bradbury and what a welcome change of pace that has been.  Read Gone Girl if you’re curious, but don’t blame me if you wish you hadn’t.

BOOK REVIEW - Killing Pablo by Mark Bowden

Killing Pablo by Mark Bowden

News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

            Terrorism is not confined to the Middle East and Central Asia.  These two books confirm that one of the most heinous criminals of our time lived in our hemisphere.  The long term impact of this man’s network rivals the devastation of Al-Queda and Osama Bin Laden , although in more insidious and less obvious ways.  These books present two views of the life and career of Pablo Escobar, Colombian smuggler, murderer, extortionist and drug cartel leader.

           

            Killing Pablo by Blackhawk Down author Mark Bowden is a thoroughly researched, journalistic view of the life and career of Pablo Escobar.  The first part is a biography chronicling Pablo’s humble beginnings as an adolescent car thief and minor hoodlum through his ruthless rise to Columbia’s most powerful drug lord.  The author explains how Pablo used bribes, extortion, intimidation and murder to control his government and build an illicit financial empire estimated in the billions of dollars.  The majority of the book examines the role of the United States military and intelligence agencies in finding Escobar and eventually killing him.  The author asks important questions regarding the United States’ obligations in foreign government’s problems that are especially appropriate in light of the events since 9/11/01.

           

             News of a Kidnapping is by Colombian novelist and Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  Love in the Time of Cholera and The General in His Labyrinth are his most famous novels.  Marquez tells the story of Escobar’s reign of terror from a different perspective.  He relates the personal experiences of ten Colombian men and women, nine of whom were journalists, who were kidnapped by Escobar’s bullies and held for ransom and for extortion purposes for months.  Parts of this read like a Keystone Kops movie script or Woody Allen’s “Bananas” since the kidnappers are such inept and drunken stooges.  The harsh reality of the victims’ personal tragedy, however, illuminates just how ruthless and heartless this man Pablo Escobar was.

          

              Each of these books gives valuable insight into the tremendous multifaceted problem of the international drug trade.  The question of how far can one government go to protect its own citizens by controlling or intervening into another country’s internal problems is intriguing.  The most frightening and disturbing aspect of these two books is the revelation of just how much “evil lurks in the hearts of men.”

           

          

Book Review:The Cut by George Pelecanos

The Cut

By George Pelecanos

     George Pelecanos presents a new main character in The Cut.  His name is Spero Lucas and is the adopted son of Greek parents and an Iraqi war veteran.  He lives in his native Washington, D.C. and does private investigator work for an attorney and often takes jobs on the side finding lost objects and receiving a percentage of the recovered property as his “cut.”  Spero is a complicated character.  He is very intelligent as displayed by his reading list, but has no interest in formal education.  He is not a very religious man, but follows the customs of his adopted Greek Orthodox family.  He is violent in his professional life but can be very caring and gentle in his personal life.  He doesn’t seem overly burdened by his war experiences, but remains very loyal to his fellow veterans.  He is, in a word, unique.

   

     In this novel, Spero is hired by Anwan Hawkins, a currently incarcerated drug dealer who is running his business from within the D.C. jail.  Anwan’s has had several bulk deliveries of marijuana stolen and he      wants them back.  These boxes are delivered by UPS to legitimate residential addresses, unbeknownst to the people living there who are usually at work during the day.  They are tracked via the internet and then picked up by two of Anwan’s workers, Tavon Lynch and Edwin Davis.  Several of these deliveries have been hijacked and Anwan hires Spero to figure out who stole the product and to retrieve it or the cash it represents.

     

     Spero begins by interviewing Tavon and Edwin and surveilling the neighborhoods of the deliveries.  He interviews neighbors and finds one teen who was skipping school and saw the UPS box being pilfered.  This witness implicates Tavon and Edwin as well as a metropolitan police officer.  The rest of the story involves Spero digging into and finding out the police who are involved and eventually he uncovers a drug and illegal arms operation running out of an auto body shop in suburban Maryland. 

     

     Pelecanos peppers The Cut with his encyclopedic knowledge of Washington, D.C.  Another trademark Pelecanos touch is the inclusion of multiple food and diner references as well as many musical citations.  These spicey additions add to an already entertaining story.  As usual, this author has crafted a dark view of modern urban living.  I hope that the Spero Lucas series has a long run and look forward to the next installment.