Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Codex by Douglas Preston by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Codex by Douglas Preston

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Last week I reviewed Douglas Preston's Wyman Ford Series. In the first book in that series, Tyrannosaur Canyon, published in 2005, the main character the series is named for doesn't come into the story until much later. Instead, the protagonist in the first book through most of the story is Tom Broadbent, a former code breaker. Broadbent was the main character in Preston's 2003 standalone thriller novel, The Codex, along with his sidekick Sally Colorado. In The Codex, both protagonists were drawn with deep, compelling characterization that I can't deny would have really made the Wyman Ford Series worth reading (in fact, I wish Wyman Ford had been taken out altogether so the series could include Broadbent and Colorado as main characters instead). 

In this story, Tom and his two brothers' father Maxwell is a notorious treasure hunter and tomb robber. In his lifetime, he accumulated more than half a billion dollars' worth of rare art, jewels, and artifacts. When Maxwell gathers his three grown, estranged sons to his New Mexico estate, they arrive to find that all his treasure is missing. Robbery is suspected until they find a cryptic message from Maxwell, telling them he's devised a final test for them to discover his tomb treasure trove. Winner takes all. Tom's two brothers can hardly wait and enlist private investigators and mercenaries. But they're far from the only ones searching for this rare, priceless hoard of items. 

Tom isn't interested in the treasure at all, at least not until a drop-dead gorgeous ethnopharmacologist (explanation for that mouthful: medicinal products used by isolated or primitive people are investigated using modern scientific methods) contacts him. Sally Colorado tells Tom that years ago his dad tried to present a Mayan Codex to a museum for translation. Without experts in the language at that time, the museum rejected it. But, now that ancient Mayan has been deciphered, Sally and her Yale professor fiancé believe ancient herbal remedies contained within that Codex could revolutionize modern medicine and lead to cures for diseases. Reluctantly, Tom agrees to help them track down his father's treasure trove in Central America, where the Codex is presumably hidden. 

In the course of multiple, thrilling twists and turns and near-death experiences, Tom, Sally, and his brothers discover they have another brother--the true eldest son of their father. Borabay is associated with the native Tara tribe who live below the White City--a mountain temple in Honduras. The chief of the tribe tells Tom and his brothers that their cancer-ridden father asked to be poisoned and buried with his treasure in the White City. However, the chief only gave him a drink that rendered him unconscious. So now the siblings must rescue their father along with reaching the treasure before the other hunters in hot pursuit get to it first. 

As I said of this author in previous reviews of his work, he excels at providing authentic settings and scenarios that seem utterly believable, in large part because Preston himself is an adventurer. Having studied mathematics, biology, physics, anthropology, and English literature, he's been a curator at a museum and a writer for National Geographic and Smithsonian, among other notable publications. With a friend, Preston once retraced on horseback a thousand miles of Coronado's route across Arizona and New Mexico--and nearly killed themselves in the process--in order to research a book. Preston's outstanding core elements are combined with The Codex's high-stakes plot and contain all the necessary complications and layers that provide unremitting suspense and action. 

While often Preston's characterization leaves much to be desired, that's not the case here. The protagonists in The Codex are beautifully drawn and fleshed out. Tom and Sally are such genuine, appealing characters from start to finish. I was rooting for them to succeed in their quest and fall in love. They really should have a series of their own. It's too bad Wyman Ford, such a cardboard character, took center stage in the Wyman Ford Series because I really believe Tom and Sally would have brought that sequence to life instead of simply starring in it intermittently (but powerfully) in the first book of it. If you're a fan of Lara Croft Tomb Raider type adventure stories that take you to ancient civilizations and feature brave, compelling, worthy heroes and heroines, this one has everything you could want and more. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Wyman Ford Series by Douglas Preston by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Wyman Ford Series by Douglas Preston

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are mainly known for the books they write together (I've previously reviewed several of them on the Alien Romances Blog including Relic and Reliquary and The Ice Limit and Beyond the Ice Limit, among others), but they're also solo authors. Douglas Preston's Wyman Ford Series (published between 2005 and 2014) is classified as a series of "archaeological thrillers" featuring Wyman Ford who retired from the CIA after his wife was killed (predictably, he was the intended victim), and he went on to become a monk. In this series, he soon retires from that sedate, boring profession in order to help out the government with globally catastrophic events that he's apparently the only person with the skills to handle. 

When the series opens in the first book, Tyrannosaur Canyon, Ford doesn't come into the story until much later. Instead, the protagonist in the first book through most of the story is Tom Broadbent, a former code breaker who's the main character in Preston's standalone novel, The Codex. I actually thought Broadbent and his kickass wife Sally were the real stars of this show. The mystery and mayhem that ensue in this first story in the series involves a Tyrannosaur fossil worth millions of dollars on the black market. While this plot involves a lot of predictable elements, the setting is authentic enough that you can practically feel the scorching sun beating down on you in the hot desert. Ironically, the thing that I liked least in this story was the character of Ford. The retired spy as a monk felt like little more than the means to make the character unique when he was, in fact, anything but. I didn't particularly think Ford added anything to the four stories currently available in this series. He's too much of a cardboard character with no real personality or feelings to make him interesting. Furthermore, his skill set seemed like convenient things tacked on to involve him in the events taking place in the individual series stories. 

The second book in the series, Blasphemy, features a supercollider that the U.S. government has built deep under an Arizona mountain that may turn the Earth into a black hole if something isn't done to shut it down. Religious and cultural clichés absolutely abound in this story--painfully so! I'm not exaggerating when I say I didn't enjoy the subplots involving by-the-book, overzealous, and ridiculously stupid religious figures and paint-by-numbers Native Americans. The plot really wasn't capable of saving this story, especially when Ford is recruited by the government (again), then forced to deal with the woman he attended college with, engaged in a brief, passionate fling at that time, and they parted ways badly long years ago. Nothing about the relationship felt authentic or moving. 

In the third series title, Impact, there's a tremendously large cast, none of whom I found adequately fleshed out; along with wide variety of well-depicted settings; and almost too much plot for one story to hold. Preston does excel at providing believable scenarios that are backed with strong, valid science and then turning them into "science fiction". For the most part, the reader can suspend belief about the things taking place in these stories; that they could actually happen in real life isn't out of the realm of possibility. This one involves otherworldly gemstones, an anomaly on Mars, and a meteor, along with end-of the-world consequences if Ford doesn't intervene. I can't say I thought he had much to do with the salvation of the world though. To me, things seemed to just fall together for him, eventually, after a lot of scares. 

 

The last book released in the series, The Kraken Project, took away the major point in Preston's favor--the believable scenario. In this story, a programmer has developed an AI she's named Dorothy who's supposed to control a probe in search of alien life on Saturn's moon Titan. Instead, during testing, Dorothy realizes she's on a suicide mission and flees into the internet in order to ensure her survival. Eventually her program is downloaded into a robot, giving her at least something of a body. While this story is based on fact--a probe searching for life actually did explore Titan's surface in January 2005--the rest of this fictional story came off as hokey and downright silly to me. I admit that seeing the test robot that my sister's husband has roaming around their home at any time, tripping people and almost never following orders, let alone answering questions correctly, is the basis for my disdain. My brother-in-law has tested several iterations of these little, cute robots over the years, but they've become progressively stupider and more unmanageable instead of smarter and more lifelike. Dorothy is portrayed as almost entirely human in terms of her feelings and manner of thinking--combined with above-average intelligence and some might say awesome prophesying skills. Nothing about the main plot in The Kraken Project seemed authentic to me. I couldn't get myself to suspend belief enough to buy any part of it and all other subplots suffered as a result. Once again, we had a massive cast of characters, Wyman Ford leading them and not really convincing me he was worth following either. The settings, though, as usual, were vivid and genuine.  

This series would best suit readers who are looking for high tension, unrelenting suspense and action, and adventure set in captivating locations combined with (mainly) authentic science and technology turned into fiction with radical "advances". If you're looking for deep, compelling characterization, you won't find too much of it here other than in the character of Tom Broadbent and his wife in the initial series offering. Both of those characters would have made excellent protagonists in the series in place of the dull, mud-puddle-depth, straight off the character worksheet appeal of Wyman Ford. Do yourself a favor and read The Codex by Douglas Preston, which I'll be reviewing next week, along with or instead of the Wyman Ford Series, which really does have everything a reader might be looking for. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Final Girls by Riley Sager by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Final Girls by Riley Sager

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

Final Girls was published in 2017, written by Riley Sager (pen name of Todd Ritter). Although this was the first book written under the author's pen name, it's one of the last I'm reading of his. It fits into a niche genre that includes psychological suspense thrillers characterized almost routinely by unreliable narrators, unexpected plot twists, and complex and usually immoral characters. Gillian Flynn, Paula Hawkins, S.J. Watson, and Sager himself are the forerunners in this category. 

As you can imagine, this "slasher film" trope is based on the last character left alive to tell the tale. The premise of Final Girls stemmed from the author wondering what it would be like for girls who are the last to survive horrific events in which everyone else around them was murdered. He wondered if they thought about it every day, whether it was possible for them to forget such a thing, and if they can ever trust again. 

The heroine, Quincy Carpenter, was involved in such an event. Ten years ago, her and her college friends were on vacation at Pinewood Cottage. Everyone was massacred by a psychotic escapee from a nearby mental hospital. Quinn remembers little about this, and what she does remember is recalled in scenes interspersed with the current story. After the incident, Quinn involuntarily becomes part of an unofficial club of "Final Girls", so named by journalists and social media websites. Lisa Milner and Samantha Boyd also survived harrowing, similar situations. For the most part, Quinn has shunned not only the press but the other "group members". She's getting on with her life, blogging as a baker and committed to a boyfriend lawyer, her hang-ups from the past locked up in a drawer in her kitchen. Lisa commits suicide and, a few days later, Quincy finds a text from her, begging her to make contact. Not long after that, Lisa's death is rule a homicide, and the other Final Girl Sam shows up on Quincy's doorstep. What happens next is a whole lot of disjointed weirdness, doubts about everyone and everything in her life, and the endless red herrings that complicate (and sometimes overwhelm) stories like these. 

Unlike a lot of Sager's other novels that I've read (and reviewed previously on this blog), he didn't include anything vaguely supernatural in this particular one. While I love stories that blend a thriller with the paranormal, I didn't miss it too much in this story, which I thought was one of his best. While, yes, it's true that I'm going to complain like I always do about his books that this one was at least 150 pages longer than it really needed to be, it was an edge-of-the-seat story and I got so caught up in it, I forgot the cardinal rule of not taking anything the writer says at face value. While I was trying to figure out what devious twist he'd try to pull out of his hat at the last minute, Sager sneaked in the back door with something I should have been looking out for from the first. Clever. I love that he out-thought me. Very few fellow writers have that ability so I can give nothing but kudos to him for achieving it with this story. 

In the author's note in the back, he mentioned that his editor's enthusiasm for the book aided him in setting a personal best in speed writing. Stephen King gave Final Girls a mostly positive review but found it "hampered only by bad writing and lack of literary merit". Honestly, I didn't notice anything but an overinflated word count. The book won the International Thriller Writers Awards for best Hard Cover Novel in 2018, so it can't be too bad. Fans of the genre will no doubt find this one worthy. Talk of a movie based on the book was announced in November 2017 but I don't think anything ever happened with it. Incidentally, there were two 2015-released movies (one called Final Girl with Abigail Breslin and another called The Final Girls), neither written by Sager, as well as a 2021 novel, The Final Girl Support Group (by Grady Hendrix), with a similar premise. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Middle of the Night by Riley Sager by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Middle of the Night by Riley Sager

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Middle of the Night by Riley Sager is his latest novel, published in June 2024. In this story, the main character Ethan Marsh is still haunted 30 years later by the disappearance of his best friend Billy from the tent in the backyard they were camping out in at the age of ten. When Ethan woke in the morning, Billy was gone, the roof of the tent slashed. Billy was never seen again. Now, as a 40 year old, Ethan returns to the New Jersey cul de sac Hemlock Circle, where it seems Billy is trying to get his attention, maybe from beyond the grave. In this place, then and now, nothing is as it seems--least of all those who populate the area. 

As usual, this novel skirts the line between horror and the supernatural, which I love in my fiction. However, all my usual complaints (when it comes to a Sager story) are here--and in ample supply. First, the book was a good 150 pages longer than I believe was actually necessary. Also, there were far too many characters to keep track of and for the author to flesh out adequately--which, I know, is what's wanted in this niche genre (made popular by Gillian Flynn, Paula Hawkins, S.J. Watson, and Sager himself, among others) where the narrator of any given story simply can't be trusted to tell his or her own story with any degree of veracity. Sager upped my stress level by telling Middle of the Night from the entire cast of characters' point of views within this book. I've read four of his eight available titles written under this pen name, and thus far he usually keeps it to a single POV within a story. So now I had to juggle a whole host of suspicious people doing disturbing things, all sporting their own nefarious motives.

Now when most people read psychological thrillers, they know to expect unreliable narrators, unexpected plot twists, and featuring characters who are not only complex but usually also liars (to themselves and everyone around them). That's the name of the game. If you like that kind of story, there's no reason you wouldn't love this book. It's got all of that and you won't ever feel entirely sure who's the culprit while reading. 

Despite that the tension was aplenty within this tale, my pet peeves about Sager's works became overkill. Even for Sager, the sheer number of characters and viewpoints, the overabundance of motives--certainty developed far more than the individual characters were--all packed into this weighty 365 page book (hardcover) left me weary. The more I read books like this, the more I don't like and trust the author. I felt overwhelmed by all the characters, all of whom seemed guilty of something, their half-truths and skewed perceptions. What really cinched it for me was that one of the characters in the book was barely mentioned the entire length of the story until the end. When he was pulled like a chicken (instead of the expected rabbit) from a hat, all my hackles rose and I cried "Unfair! Cheater!" 

For the most part, usually I believe this author has played fair with readers--if we're really paying attention from one page to the next--we can't deny that the answers were all there, buried deep in multiple levels of deceptions on everyone's parts. Here, I argue that we weren't given the information we needed to make the leap. Or maybe the book was just too long and convoluted and I missed that vital bit. Who knows? For me, neither the ghostly aspects nor the shocking, twisted denouement could save this story, let alone top his previous endeavors. Ultimately, Middle of the Night did receive more than fair reviews elsewhere, so if this is your usual type of suspense, you may end up much more satisfied by it than I ultimately was. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in these reviews. 

The House Across the Lake was Riley Sager's 2022 release, a thriller that went on to be compared to Hitchcock's Rear Window. I really thought I had this author figured out after having read three or four of his previous books (though not in order of publication). Almost without fail, he puts a too-curious-for-her-own-good female who's on the edge in a precarious situation where nothing is as it seems. He also plays the "unreliable narrator" card so often, I can see it coming in five words or less now. I've learned to never, absolutely ever trust his narrator because her (so far as I've gotten in reading his backlist, all his lead characters have actually been female) perspective is forever going to throw false impressions and skewed perspectives all along my path. Additionally, I can always be certain this viewpoint isn't innocent because there are secrets yet to be unearthed--sometimes not until the very last pages. Finally, I can be assured this author will insinuate supernatural involvement somehow in his novel, which is something that probably draws me to his books more than anything else. 

From the first page until well past the middle of this very long book, I couldn't have been more haughtily convinced I knew exactly where the plot was going. Everything felt predictable and even stereotypical. My interest waned often. I felt as though I'd read this basic scenario many times before and at least a few times better executed. Then literally out of nowhere…!!! A typhoon on a sunny day, and hell on earth instead of the tranquil paradise I was beginning to fall asleep in. I just didn't see the hurricane coming until I was hit full-force by it. I guess the author lulled me into a state of lake-time oblivion, given how I was almost literally snoring when the nightmare hit me blindside. Talk about a twist! But there was much more in store for me--a diabolical twist on another draw-dropping twist topped with a final, stunning sucker punch twist. Wowza! I couldn't catch my breath until I devoured the second half of the book within little more than an hour (after drowsing through the first half of the book over the course of a leaning-toward bored several days). 

The surface story here is that a recently widowed actress named Casey has retreated to her family's lake house in Vermont. Been there, literally, done that, right? But it's not that ho-hum. There are a few interesting points. Lake Greene has gained some notoriety of late with the disappearances of three young girls who are presumed dead, the victims of a supposed serial killer. Lake Greene is also associated with a neat urban legend. Based on the Victorian-era belief that reflective surfaces can trap souls of the dead (and therefore the living covered all the mirrors after someone died), the tribes that lived in this particular area long before European settlers arrived went still bigger with their beliefs--lakes could also be considered reflective surfaces, so if a person saw their own reflection in the lake after someone died in that body of water, they could become possessed by the soul trapped beneath the water's surface. I do have to comment that one of the characters told this old wives' tale in a shocking bit of cabbageheadism, which basically means that the reader needed to know this so the author spoon-fed it from one character to the others in the scene. In any case… 

Grief has made Casey a drunk and apparently a voyeur when she realizes her new neighbors are a controlling tech innovator named Tom and his former supermodel wife. After Casey saves said wife Katherine from drowning, she begins to realize something is very wrong with their marriage. Then Katherine abruptly vanishes, and Casey suspects Tom had something to do with it. 

One more aside: Sager made reference to his fictional setting of Camp Nightingale from his novel The Last Time I Lied, which I reviewed back in January of this year, when Katherine claims she was a "Camp Nightingale girl". Cool! I love it when the author wants to see if his fans are paying attention. 

The twists in The House Across the Lake are what made this story compelling. It was well-written with good characterization, however, as I said, I've read a few of Sager's books now and all the main characters strike me as similar. They have different names, settings, and situations, but they could easily be swapped out for each other from one of his books to the next. 

Additionally, (another thing I've said nearly every time I review one of Sager's books), this novel is just too darn long. He could have cut half of the 349 pages that were in the hardcover edition and came out with essentially the same story. As is almost always the case, everyone is a suspect--including the one who vanished as well as the one investigating the crime--and all have a secret that makes them a likely killer. Motive and opportunity aplenty for each and every player in the book. Culling his list of suspects so there weren't so many red herrings could have helped a lot.

If you'll remember, I did state from the beginning of this review that my interest was seriously flagging at the halfway point. If not for that first twist, I'm not sure the whodunit (or more aptly, who didn't do it? since it was anyone's game for most of the story) could have been salvaged. I was a single word away from "skim"-reading (which is what I do when I'm at least semi-committed and then a story disappoints me too much to continue reading word for word) just to get through it to the end. 

I think a lot of readers might have maintained interest all the way through--namely, those who are fans of this type of "unreliable narrator" thriller genre. I've read a couple truly good ones (Ruth Ware is a solid favorite of mine in this category), but the majority are usually not my cup of tea. This one was saved at the eleventh hour by the twist so it is worth reading. If you're patient, there is good stuff in store for you. 

Incidentally, in March 2023, there was talk about Netflix making a film adaptation, and I think that medium would be ideal for this particular tale. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Riley Sager's The Last Time I Lied is a thriller published in 2018 and it reminded me of some teenage drama B-movies that came out in the 80s and 90s where particularly stupid young adults make bad decisions and spend the rest of their lives paying the price. In this story, a rich girls' summer camp reopens 15 years after it was closed due to the unsolved disappearances of three prominent teenage girls. Heroine Emma stayed in the same cabin as the older, lost girls. Now a painter, Emma suffers survivor's guilt, painting the three missing girls over and over in her acclaimed art. When the owner of the camp decides to reopen despite the notoriety of Camp Nightingale, she invites Emma to teach painting during the summer session. Emma knows she needs to deal with the past and this seems like the way to do it. Besides, she's determined to find out the truth of what happened a decade and a half ago--even if it means potentially stirring up a hornet's nest and setting in motion a repeat of the past. 

One of the things I'm always lured into Sager's stories with is the promise of potential supernatural explanations for unsolved mysteries. In this story, the ghost of one of the missing girls seems to be haunting Emma's consciousness--or is she physically haunting her? Not knowing kept me reading. I loved the allegory of Emma painting the three girls into all of her art and then covering them up under forest scenes of paint. Emma can't get past this in her painting let alone her life until the mystery is finally solved. 

Sager is a solid writer and always includes well developed characters that you root for even as you doubt them and their true motives. This plot was filled with a large amount of red herrings and suspects along with multilayered subplots and suspense galore. While a lot of the reviews I read about the thriller talked about a shocking twist at the end, I for one anticipated something just like this (which could just mean I'm a writer as well as a reader). For that reason, to me it simply felt well done and perfectly executed, not particularly surprising. The story would have felt incomplete without that precise denouement. 

My only real complaint is a pretty mild one that I've spoken of in at least one of my previous reviews for this author's books. The tale just dragged on and on. In part, I admit I don't feel any great love for summer camps, having never gone to one nor ever really wanted to. I felt there were too many characters, too many mysteries to solve, too many twists and turns. As I've alluded to before with Sager, I felt the book was unnecessarily complicated, something others might consider a plus, but which made the off-shot tangents in the plot a burden for me to get through. I'm not sure it needed such a large cast of characters either. I had a little bit of trouble keeping track of who was who and how they all fit in the story--past and present. 

Overall, though, The Last Time I Lied is another solid brainteaser, and Sager has convinced me to put him on my "read everything by this author" list. Stay tuned. I expect I'll be reviewing more of his books in the future. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Lock Every Door by Riley Sager by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

 

Lock Every Door was published in 2019, written by Riley Sager (pen name of author Todd Ritter). This is the second Sager novel I've read (I reviewed Home Before Dark on July 26, 2024). This Gothic suspense horror drew many comparisons to Rosemary's Baby, maybe because Sager dedicated the book to Ira Levin. I can see the reason for the comparison in the story parallels. 

In this novel, Jules Larsen is without family or job, and her boyfriend kicks her when she's down by cheating. Needing money and a place to stay fast, she interviews for a luxurious apartment sitter position at an exclusive New York City building called the Bartholomew, which has both rich and famous tenants and a checkered history filled with intriguing deaths and disappearances. 

In exchange for apartment sitting for three months, Jules will be given $1200 (which I found to be a pretty pathetic sum, considering the limitations placed on her during this time, but I suppose the point is that most of these sitters have no other place to live and need money badly). The only catch is three weird rules that she has to follow while living there: No visitors, no nights spent away from the apartment, and no disturbing the other residents. From the first, Jules can't seem to help herself from playing amateur sleuth. The disappearances of previous sitters is uncanny, considering all were broke, homeless, and without family. 

I enjoyed the Rosemary's Baby overtones that opened this story, along with the creepiness of the building with gargoyle statues guarding it, and the believability of this desperate character taking a job that doesn't seem quite smart. However, I strongly felt that the mystery investigation aspect smothered the very long, middle portion of the story. I found myself bored as more and more suspicious disappearances were discovered, and Jules tracked down every lead. I think at least a hundred pages could have easily been cropped out of the middle without significantly changing much of anything in the overall story. I guess ultimately I wanted much more horror, much less Scooby Doo. I did appreciate the social commentary aspect of how easy it is for penniless, orphaned young adults to fall through the cracks with hardly anyone--least of all law enforcement--even noticing. 

This well-written story did provide a rich tapestry when it came to setting and character development. I will say that I guessed the culprit or culprits almost right away, and I actually had a strong inkling why it was done as well--the second, short "flash forward" scene that the author included told me basically everything I needed to know. Admittedly, I'm a mystery writer myself so maybe it's harder to fool me than the other reviewers who all claimed this story had a lot of twists, turns, and surprises that I didn't find evident myself. However, oddly enough, I did think the red herrings were particularly well done and compelling. There's talk of this novel in development as a TV series by Paramount. All in all, this one is worth a read, and I do plan to pick up more of Sager's books in the future. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton by Karen S. Wiesner

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton

by Karen S. Wiesner  

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Dragon Teeth was published in 2017, nine years after the author's death, although it was a book Michael Crichton actually wrote in 1974. It's touted as a historical fiction forerunner to his mega-successful Jurassic Park. Right upfront, I'll state as I did about my review for State of Fear by Crichton a few weeks ago that Dragon Teeth really doesn't have anything to do with aliens in any form, despite that the author is known for including elements of that type in his work and despite the title and really cool cover for this. However, in the vein that sometimes books about the future of humanity as well as historical accounts of it, albeit fictionalized, sometimes do seem very outlandish to modern readers can Dragon Teeth be considered alien. 

Set in 1876's Bone Wars (otherwise known as the Great Dinosaur Rush), when fossil hunting was at the height of competition, this story follows two fictional students of paleontology engaged in a heated rivalry that strains the boundaries of everything legal and moral--similar to real-life paleontologists during that time period, Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. William Johnson is a Yale student, his rival Marlin. During a fossil hunting expedition in the Badlands, things go from bad to worse, just as one can expect in the Wild West (and yes, Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok do make appearances). 

There were rumors of National Geographic adapting the novel into a TV series that follows the notoriety of Cope and Marsh's intense rivalry during a time of fossil discovery and speculation. I'm not sure if anything ever happened with it, but it would be interesting for those who want to find out more about how fossil hunting first began in America. 

While this story is good and has all the elements of suspense, fantastic characters, and a historical-event studded setting and plot, I'm not a huge fan of Westerns and this book is, at its heart, the best kind of Western. I read and mildly enjoyed it for what it was. Those with an interest in that genre or who want to know more about early paleontology won't be disappointed. 

I can't help wondering why the author wrote this whole book during the time he was probably also working on other early action/adventure novels like The Terminal Man and The Great Train Robbery. Why did he never go back to Dragon Teeth, never try to get it published, as he surely could have during the height of his popularity? Did he find it lacking as several reviewers did following its posthumous release? Any answer I can come up leads me to also question what the author would have thought about this work he abandoned being published at all. But I guess that doesn't matter now, even if it should. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: State of Fear by Michael Crichton by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: State of Fear by Michael Crichton

by Karen S. Wiesner  

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

State of Fear was a 2004 technothriller fiction novel written by Michael Crichton that I found utterly authentic each time I've read it. I'll state upfront that there really isn't anything "alien" about this book. No strange beasties or supernatural elements anywhere, beyond extrapolation of current events pushed to the extreme edge toward one possible conclusion. I chose to cover it here because the series of Michael Crichton reviews I've been rolling out for more than a month now and will continue for a few more weeks simply wouldn't be complete without this book included. 

Also, let's dispense with the climate controversy surrounding this particular title right from the off. The author included at the back of the book not only graphs and footnotes, an appendix, but also a 20-page bibliography containing a list of 172 books and journal articles presented "to assist those readers who would like to review my thinking and arrive at their own conclusions". In all this, the author supported his own highly-controversial beliefs about global warming. A host of so-called experts in numerous fields disputed his views, and he fought back with a statement on his website (which you can read here: https://www.michaelcrichton.com/works/state-of-fear-authors-message/). Crichton has also stated that he didn't want to write the book. He was encouraged to do it, tried to ignore the idea, felt like a coward, worried he'd be killed for going ahead and writing it, and, against all logic, he ended up doing it anyway. 

I think everyone needs to be reminded from the beginning of this review that this book is a work of fiction, one grounded in the very realistic science that Crichton was famous for delving into and finding the "potentially terrifying underbelly" beneath. 

That said, I don't have anything nearing an educated opinion about climate change or global warming. (I, in fact, doubt there's a single person alive who actually does. It would take great arrogance and audacity to believe anyone could know much, if anything, about an ancient planet that's been in existence long before any of us appeared on it.) I only know that I believe each and every one of us is a steward and caretaker of Earth by default, given that we were all born here. As such, we need to take care of it and do our parts in protecting our portion of it in whatever ways we can. I'll say no more about this subject than that. 

State of Fear runs the gamut of settings--from Ireland's glaciers to Antarctica's volcanoes, to Arizona desert and Solomon Islands' jungle, the streets of Paris and the beaches of Los Angeles. You won't be bored on the setting front. Each of these locations is described brilliantly, and the characters involved are finely drawn with a lawyer for a rich philanthropist, Peter Evans, leading the extremely large cast. Evans manages contributions to the fictional National Environmental Resource Fund (NERF). Misused funds are noted, and it comes to light that international law enforcement agencies are following the trail of an eco-terrorist faction with the acronym of ELF, a fictional group that's modeled after the existing Earth Liberation Front. This particular group is so fanatical about convincing the world that global warming exists, they're willing to simulate natural disasters, killing countless, in order to get their message across. Surrounding the controversy is the planning of a NERF-sponsored climate conference. Evans, along with a host of others, intends to stop ELF from causing a tsunami to inundate everyone and everything on California's coastline. 

The only reason I can see anyone not liking this book is because they've forgotten it's written in Crichton's usual modus operandi of fiction with "the absolute ring of truth" (stated by Larry Nation, American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), after the author received their 2006 Journalism Award, which has since been renamed the "Geosciences in the Media" Award, for the research he did for State of Fear). This story has everything a reader could want in a tightly-written thriller. It's sad when fiction has to be saddled with overwhelming and usually toxic political agendas. 

Whether or not you've read this story before, you might want to consider it if you're looking for a fast-paced, deep and well developed tale from a master. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Timeline by Michael Crichton by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Timeline by Michael Crichton

by Karen S. Wiesner  

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

I confess I'm not a fan of time-travel fiction, other than The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, but that's a worthwhile exception. Basically, every other time-travel story tends to get very convoluted (as the second season opener of the otherwise enjoyable Loki proved to me almost beyond a shadow of a doubt), especially when these stories are usually accompanied by an impossible "convergence" which has to be perfectly timed to pull off. What are the odds? Too astronomical to calculate. The incredulity is more than I can believe, let alone bear, in almost every case. However, Michael Crichton's 1999 time-travel thriller Timeline combined the usual things I love about his books: scientific and technical authenticity, high action, incredible characterization, and (for this particular one) quantum and multiverse theory. Finally, I love anything medieval. My biggest regret as an author intending to retire by 2025 is that I never got to write a series set in a medieval time period. I had some ideas for one and had even named the saga and the individual titles in it, but I have no plans to ever write it, despite that I continue to collect books about medieval lore left and right. Sigh. In any case, given that Crichton almost never fails to live up to my expectations and that the medieval world he created in Timeline is so fantastic, there was really no way to lose in betting I would enjoy this story the first time I read it. 

Travelers through the desert happen upon an elderly man and take him to a New Mexico hospital, where doctors discover before his death that he's an ITC company employee and that all hell has broken lose in his blood vessels. 

Meanwhile in southwest France, a team of archaeologists and historians study fourteenth-century Castelgard and La Rogue. They make disturbing discoveries, including the very modern lens from their leader Professor Edward Johnston's glasses and a message from him that appears to be over 600 years old. Graduate students Chris and Kate, along with assistant professor Andre, and technology specialist David are flown to their funds' provider ITC's headquarters in New Mexico. There, they're told that Johnston traveled to the year 1357--an extremely dangerous medieval time period--using their quantum technology. They're forced to go back in time to retrieve him. 

Not surprisingly, the time-travel transit pad is damaged upon their arrival to the place and time their leader was last deposited by the technology. Returning to their own time period might be impossible if it's not repaired. The locals are involved in political strife and war (the Hundred Years' War) that the time-travelers are inadvertently pulled into and become emotionally embroiled in with the key figures they meet. The only way to prevent suspicions that they're not who and what they say they are, which could get them killed in such a superstitious age, is to go along with the events as they play out, all while hoping the opportunity to get home comes soon. 

Crichton said about writing this story that it took twice as long to write as Jurassic Park, what he considered his last adventure story. What he found the most fascinating about it matches my own assessment--the medieval setting he wanted to be brutally authentic. When recalling the development process, he commented that he'd uncovered a world where you might be killed if you picked up a fallen glove, you risked death just by claiming you're gentle, where pastry was designed to look like animal intestines, where monasteries were utilized as tennis courts, where women were killed just for cutting their own hair short, and where wet gunpowder exploded. 

This story is tightly woven, the situations in the present and past fascinating, and the characters are ones readers can't help but root for. A film adaptation came out in 2003 but wasn't well received, though it's not bad--simply not as good as the book version. 

Whether or not you've read or watched this story before, you might want to consider it if you're looking for a fast-paced, well-developed tale with depth from a master of the fantastic. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Congo by Michael Crichton by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Congo by Michael Crichton

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

In 1980, Crichton wrote another scary book about ancient creatures inhabiting a forgotten world in the dense tropical rainforest of the Congo. The novel Congo starts when an expedition sent there in search of diamond deposits by Earth Resource Technology Services, Inc. (ERTS) is attacked and killed by unknown beats that look like gray gorillas. Instead of diamonds, this team apparently found the (fictional) lost city of Zinj.

Led by the independent and compelling Karen Ross, another expedition is launched to discover the truth. This time, they decide to bring along a female mountain gorilla named Amy, trained to use sign language, and her trainer Peter Elliot, hoping Amy will be able to communicate with the creatures. Ironically, after the book was published, reviewers found Amy's abilities too incredible to believe. Yet Crichton modeled his fictional gorilla after Koko, who'd been on the cover of National Geographic twice at that point and had done interviews on television using sign language. Apparently, she wasn't famous enough at that point to be a realistic example. Go figure.

I found everything about this novel binge-worthy and convincing. The characters, including lovely, funny Amy, were utterly beguiling, smart, and interesting. I truly enjoyed their journey from start to finish, rooting for them in the face of rival competitors also searching and set against a ticking clock--with a nearby volcano threatening to blow and bury the intriguing find under lava and ash for all time.

A bit of an aside, but while researching this review, I discovered that Crichton apparently pitched the idea of producing a "modern-day version of King Solomon's Mines" to a major film company, who bough the rights long before the book was written. Not surprisingly, the author found himself suffering from writer's block in the face of pressure no doubt instigated by the astronomical advance he was given to produce a novel, screenplay, and secure directing rights. Fortunately, he finished the book, which quickly became a bestseller. A year later, he started writing the screenplay, hoping Sean Connery (who starred in Crichton's The Great Train Robbery) would fill the lead role. The film was released in 1995 with neither Crichton or Connery involved. While enjoying a successful box office performance, the film version was ridiculed most notably with Golden Raspberry Award nominations for Worst Picture. While I found the film decent and worth watching, I strongly recommend that you don't judge the book by this movie. The story version itself is not to be missed.

Whether or not you've read or watched this story before, you might want to consider it if you're looking for a fast-paced, deep and well developed tale of the fantastical variety. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/