Review - Thin Ice by Alex Keena

Five students end up marooned in the middle of a frozen lake in the depths of winter after a car crash. With no phone signal and the weather worsening there seems no hope of rescue and less chance of getting off the lake alive.

Following a potentially interesting premise, I have to say I was hugely disappointed by this book. It proved to be by turns frustrating, bizarre and disjointed. The five characters who are trapped on the lake – Matt, Sam, Mya, Lisa and Essie –are fairly insubstantial beings. I couldn’t relate to or like any of them. All were irritating in their own way and not even worth describing.

One by one the students, unable to get off the lake because as soon as they move any distance from the car the ice cracks, thankfully die off in a variety of ways until about half way through when a mystery man appears. He manages to walk across the same ice no-one else could to rescue two survivors. In a couple of pages, the author wipes out the whole basis of the novel. But it’s not over yet because Thin Ice gets really odd once the pair are in hospital they’re attacked by one of the apparent dead.

The story then really goes off the bizarre scale when the one last survivor is suddenly at the man’s house who rescued them. No explanation why. Then she’s back in the hospital, then at a funeral, then in a mine being chased down by the rescuer, all with no understandable and believable transition between the locations. It’s as cheesy as ripe brie.

But there’s more. You may or may not remember the original Dallas series, when Bobby ‘dies’and a series later comes back from the dead? If not, look it up. Well, that’s what Thin Ice is all about…I suspect the author hoped this would be a major twist, unfortunately it was very obvious.

There were a couple of high points, such as the crash and when the car sinks into the lake with someone trapped inside, but they were pretty much it.

As to the mechanics of the tale. The author made many repeats of the same word(s) within the same sentence(s). This is something I find particularly annoying because basic editing will sort this issue out. For example:

“…in a few minutes, that will be frozen solid and you’ll be frozen along with it!” Matt looked down at the freezing liquid that now covered the ice.

Then there was the SHOUTING. Yes, lots of words and even whole sentences in capitals for emphasis. Ouch. Also a lot of dialogue was punctuated by … which is easy to over-use and the author slipped into this other bad habit quite readily.

Finally the overall writing style was clunky, it just didn’t flow well. For example:

Like he, himself, had been, Lisa was also suspended upside-down but, unlike him, she didn’t suddenly wake up.

Thin Ice just about crept over the two star line saved by the reasonable premise in the first half and a couple of heartbeat moments. But only JUST.

Rating? Two Stars

Would I add this to my bookshelf? No

Originally reviewed for Books & Pals blog.

Review - The Bastard's Handbook

The Bastard’s Handbook is a manual for men, basically how to be a better bastard towards your friends and women in general. It contains information on how to steal your best friend’s girl, favourite sexual positions, how to recognize different types of bastards, how to borrow money and never pay it back, and must have bastard accessories.

There’s really not much to say about The Bastard’s Handbook, either you’ll like the humour or you won’t. For example there is a section about dumping your girlfriend for someone better:

Wait for her to make the first move and then kiss her with false passion, holding back tears due to the fake raw emotion will only add to the effect. Then if the situation presents itself have your wicked way, remember there is nothing better than to prey on the emotionally needy.

This is a very mild quote in comparison to some of the suggestions.

There are chapters on quotes by famous bastards (e.g. Napoleon), bastard categories (like lucky, dirty etc.), how to get more sex, how to cheat on your partner, suitable music and books and careers as a bastard among others. It can get a bit repetitive. For example, there are 37 types of bastard plus another section called ‘Other Bastard terms’ where a further 12 are listed.

The dropped capital T in the above heading is as it is in the book. This was quite typical. The version I reviewed looked thrown together. There were large gaps between lines and paragraphs and there were many and repeated punctuation and spacing errors.

Unfortunately, I didn’t laugh once. I once read How to be a Complete Bastard by Adrian Edmondson, a spin off from a UK comedy series, The Young Ones. At the time I loved it, however, I was 16. Perhaps that’s the problem…

 

Rating? Two Stars

Would add this to my bookshelf? No

 

Review - The 19th Element

An Al Qaeda terrorist cell plots to attack a nuclear power plant in the US heartland. Only one man, James Becker, can stop disaster happening.

What’s the point of a thriller? Well, I guess the clue is in the word itself. Unfortunately there were many issues with The 19^th Element from a contrived plot (an Al Qaeda attack on a nuclear power plant?!) that never got out of second gear, to weak characters, and odd dialogue.

First is Becker himself who failed to convince me of his credentials. He’s ex-secret service, but then describes himself as wealthy because he invented a new bullet that can kill people at 1.5 miles (great!). He also has an unused degree – this and the money mean he’s been able to change profession and still act undercover (although independently of the government) but seems able to call in favours at will, like bringing in two Apache helicopters to take out the bad guys at just the right moment.

The writing isn’t bad, it’s just overly descriptive and ponderous. It’s ‘tell’ instead of ‘show’, observation instead of participation. For example, Becker gets into a fight at one point, it felt like I was watching the process from afar. When Jack Reacher fights, he fights, you feel every punch, every injury, adrenalin pumps. Unfortunately not with Becker. I wanted to put on my pyjamas and go to bed with a hot water bottle.

There were quite a few examples of this over use of tell. Remember the unused degree and new job. From the following, can you guess what Becker does?

‘Today was Wednesday and I was at my office. Becker Law Office. James L. Becker, Attorney-at-Law.’

Um, I think he’s an attorney? But I could be wrong.

On occasion, there were long, bulleted and descriptive lists. Once Becker described everything he was carrying on a mission. So what? Then there was the whole set of instructions to take off in a B-24. Why?

Then there were continuity errors. Most, but not all, chapters started with some or all of the time, date, and location. In the early chapters, the date jumped around. It was May 8^th, then the 6^th, back to the 8^th, then the 7^th, then to 1979 (this chapter didn’t have a date description though!). It was difficult to keep an eye on. Sometimes you’d be informed that it was 3 am, then be immediately told this again the first line of the chapter. Or you’d be told you were on the plane, it’s obvious. We know where Becker is because he hasn’t moved. Tell, not show.

Also, a couple of sub-plots seemed thrown in. A Mongolian, part of a gang Becker took down in his past, follows his daughter on campus. He races to save her. There’s also some Al Qaeda observer early on that’s explained away at the end, tied into the Mongolian.

Finally, the style changed in some chapters. When in the nuclear plant scenes all of the dialogue is written as if it’s a screenplay. Why? For interest perhaps. If so, it didn’t work. It made the dialogue clunky.

So overall a disappointing read. The 19^th Element promised much but failed to deliver. I needed much more ‘thrill!’ and a lot less ‘er?’

Rating? Two Stars

Would add this to my bookshelf? No

Children Of The Enemy - DJ Swykert

Jude St. Onge is a drug addict who thinks he’s onto the deal of his life when he steals a bag of drugs from heavyweight dealer, Mitchell Parson. But whilst fleeing Jude’s car breaks down. By chance he seeks refuge with Ray Little, a brooding junkyard owner and ex-con.

Parson’s fixer, a brutal Haitian called Swallow, is sent out by Parson to track Jude down. Swallow tortures and then kills Jude’s wife, Ariana. He kidnaps Jude’s daughter, Angelina, who was forced to watch her mother’s hard death, so he can use her as leverage to ensure Jude returns the drugs.

Swallow’s plan works, but not everything goes right for Jude. Ray swears he will rescue Angelina and, with the help of story hungry local reporter Ted Rogers, he goes about the task in single minded and lethal fashion.

If I was going to describe this book with one word it would be ‘argh!’ If I was allowed a second it would be ‘yuck’.

To elaborate a little, I found this book by turns frustrating and overtly graphic. First, the frustration. Children of the Enemy started out well enough, with a strung out Jude losing control of his car and coming across the complicated and enigmatic Ray in his moment of need. However, the story soon slowly went off the rails and by the latter quarter I’d had enough, primarily due to the writing style where dialogue and sometimes description was repetitive, meandering and unrealistic. For example:

“I want to do what’s right, Ray. But I don’t want to do something I’ll regret later.”

“The way I see it we either regret doing something or we regret doing nothing. Either way we end up living with regret. I’d rather regret what I did than regret what I didn’t.”

And on occasion the characters kept going over the same ground, for example (in a much, much shortened outline):

“Is he gonna make it?” McCants asked.

“…He must have one of the hardest heads on earth to still be alive. He shouldn’t be alive, but he is, and most likely he’s gonna survive…” Dr Litton said.

“Then you think he’s gonna recover…?”

And sometimes just downright clunky:

“I think all rich people are crazy. They do crazy shit and they get into crazy shit. What you have going on here is rich people crazy shit…” And so on.

Maybe it’s just me not taking to the author’s style, but after wading through what must have been in excess of one hundred of these types of lines I tired of it.

The second element was the graphic description of torture, drug use and sex on which I will barely dwell. I’m not the squeamish sort, but personally having to read about a fourteen year old girl having her finger chopped off was just too much. And that was by no means the end of it…

Rating? Two Stars

Would add this to my bookshelf? No

**Originally reviewed for Al's Books & Pals. May have received free review copy.**