Robert Tanenbaum is one of my favorite authors. I've been a fan since, well, I don't know but a long time. He has never failed to entertain me with his tales of Roger (Butch) Karp, district attorney of New York County and his crime-fighting wife, Marlene Ciampi, who has gone from a flunky in the DA's office to a mother of teenagers, then to a life of dog-breeding and uncertainty about whether she wants to remain in her marriage. To date, she's staying and it's a good thing for everybody.
In Outrage, however, I began to realize something. Butch is the goodiest of the goody-two-shoes characters I've ever had the pleasure of reading. As far as I know, he hasn't a wart anywhere. He's Superman and the Lone Ranger rolled into one: straight-shooter, the wisdom of Methusalah and the power (and desire) to right wrongs.
Robert Tanenbaum, however, is showing his boredom with the craft of writing. He spends much of Outrage recapping previous stories and spends entirely too much time on his old friend Moishe Sobelman, a concentration-camp Jew who escaped through his own bravery. Moishe and wife Goldie come to the aid of Karp's twin sons, who learn about the fallacy of allowing bully tactics to harm a member of their baseball team, giving readers a lesson as well. Goldie also provides a little advice on love to Lucy, the Karps' daughter.
It's almost as if Tanenbaum is driven to teach the modern world about the Holocaust all over again. That's not a bad thing, but I'm not sure his novels are the place for that.
The only real meat of the story is the tale of a young man prone to violence and blaming others for his misdeeds. Butch has not been informed of the case but when made aware, promptly jumps in and takes charge. That tale by itself would take about a third of the book; the rest is filler.
I won't say don't read Outrage but if you do, don't expect too much.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Fallen by Karin Slaughter
The latest (2011) in the saga of Grant County, GA's Dr. Sara Linton takes another turn with Fallen, the continuing story with Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents Faith Mitchell and Will Trent. If you've read previous books, you know that Faith is a twice-unwed mother (the first child is 20 years old, the latest is four months) and Will is a smart but dyslexic guy whose appeal is not unnoticed by the women in his life. Amanda Wagner, his supervisor in the GBI, gets on his case a lot but he's wily enough (or maybe naive enough) to let her comments roll off his back.
This time Faith gets off work and goes to her mother's house to pick up her baby but gets a feeling of something "not quite right" about the house. She finds Emma locked in a shed, safe, but one man dead and two more in the house. One has a gun to the other's head. One shoots the other and runs, then Faith guns him down.
Meanwhile, her mother is nowhere in sight.
No doubt the situation is a result of Capt. Evelyn Mitchell's "retirement" from the Atlanta Police Department four years ago. She was allowed to retire rather than face charges of corruption with her team of officers.
Enter Will and Amanda, each with his own reasons for getting involved, other than being concerned for Faith's well-being. APD doesn't want their help but they're going to give it anyway.
Karin Slaughter does a masterful job of keeping the plot moving and giving us new insights into the characters. Until the very end, we're not sure whether Evelyn was part of the corruption of her unit or not; Amanda knows but isn't saying. They're all sympathetic characters, if I understand the term, because the reader grows to care about them and has her own hopes for the outcome. One hint: there's a scene toward the end where Will blows Sara's mind with an offer of a handshake. She lets him know in no uncertain terms it isn't acceptable.
Fallen is being released this month (July 2011) and for mystery lovers, it's a must-read!
This time Faith gets off work and goes to her mother's house to pick up her baby but gets a feeling of something "not quite right" about the house. She finds Emma locked in a shed, safe, but one man dead and two more in the house. One has a gun to the other's head. One shoots the other and runs, then Faith guns him down.
Meanwhile, her mother is nowhere in sight.
No doubt the situation is a result of Capt. Evelyn Mitchell's "retirement" from the Atlanta Police Department four years ago. She was allowed to retire rather than face charges of corruption with her team of officers.
Enter Will and Amanda, each with his own reasons for getting involved, other than being concerned for Faith's well-being. APD doesn't want their help but they're going to give it anyway.
Karin Slaughter does a masterful job of keeping the plot moving and giving us new insights into the characters. Until the very end, we're not sure whether Evelyn was part of the corruption of her unit or not; Amanda knows but isn't saying. They're all sympathetic characters, if I understand the term, because the reader grows to care about them and has her own hopes for the outcome. One hint: there's a scene toward the end where Will blows Sara's mind with an offer of a handshake. She lets him know in no uncertain terms it isn't acceptable.
Fallen is being released this month (July 2011) and for mystery lovers, it's a must-read!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
