Review: WORTH DYING FOR by Lee Child

Lee Child, whose thrillers regularly top bestseller charts around the world, broke his long-held book-a-year pattern by squeezing in a second Jack Reacher tale, the fifteenth overall, late last year, delighting fans.

The taciturn wandering hero ended the excellent 61 Hours in a precarious position in blizzard-bashed South Dakota. Now he’s resurfaced in the rural expanses of Nebraska, bruised and battered. After dealing out some much-needed street justice to a wife-beater, Reacher finds himself in the cross-hairs of the powerful family who’ve ruled the area through fear and intimidation for decades. The situation worsens when three teams of professional ‘fixers’ arrive in town, looking to protect a lucrative criminal enterprise on behalf of their various bosses, and perhaps wipe out some of the competition. With Reacher caught in the middle.

Child delivers his usual punchy, page-turning style that hooks readers early and takes you on a fun ride. There’s plenty of action and thrills, along with some suspense as to what’s really going on. However, at times I found the storytelling a little ‘thin’ or one-note, enjoyable but not completely engaging or layered. We learn a little more about Reacher, who over the course of the series has become a character with more complexity than is first apparent. But Worth Dying For kind of feels a little like a fun pit-stop between 61 Hours and whatever the future holds.

A good read for the beach, bach or camping ground over summer.

3.5 stars (tomatoes)

This review was originally published in the January 2011 issue of WildTomato magazine

Have you read WORTH DYING FOR? What did you think? Are you a Lee Child fan, a 'Reacher creature'? Thoughts and comments welcome.

Review: ASSIGNED TO MURDER by Trish McCormack

Former Hokitika journalist and Abel Tasman NP worker Trish McCormack combines her two great passions in her debut novel; crime fiction and the uniqueness and stunning scenery of the West Coast.

Young glacier guide Philippa Barnes is still recovering from her parents’ sudden death when her old flatmate Kirsten, a journalist, is murdered near a picturesque lake. When Kirsten’s brother Jack asks Philippa to help dig deeper into what Kirsten was investigating, Philippa finds herself on a treacherous journey involving family secrets, human frailties, and long-buried crimes. At the same time a diarist tries to come to terms with a past horror.

Good murder mysteries have strong characters as well as puzzling plots. Overall, McCormack does well on that front. Although I was a little slow to warm to Philippa (who seemed a touch annoying at first), her depth and complexity comes out as the story progresses, and there is an interesting and well-drawn wider cast. McCormack has a nice touch for the emotional intricacies of human relationships, although her characters’ dialogue is at times a little unrealistic, filled with more exposition than subtext. More absorbing slow burn than cracking page-turner, Assigned to Murder trundles along for a while before hitting its stride, then finishing strongly.

Overall, there are plenty of good things (some very good) about this debut effort, and I look forward to seeing what McCormack comes up with next.

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This review was first published in the December 2010 issue of WildTomato, the magazine of Nelson and Marlborough. You can read more about this terrific magazine here.

Review: SLAUGHTER FALLS by Alix Bosco

Last year ‘Alix Bosco’, the pseudonym for a ‘successful writer in other media’, burst onto the New Zealand fiction-writing scene with the acclaimed CUT & RUN, a thriller that is a finalist for the inaugural Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel. Bosco’s compelling debut, which introduced overworked social worker turned legal researcher turned unintentional sleuth Anna Markunas, has also been tabbed for TV adaptation, with Robyn Malcolm (Outrageous Fortune) in the lead.

Middle-aged and multi-layered Markunas is now back in SLAUGHTER FALLS, although this time instead of the mean streets of South Auckland she finds herself caught up in a puzzling death while holidaying in sunny Queensland. A weekend of revelry and rugby watching sours terribly when two members of Markunas’s tour party die sudden, violent deaths. As Markunas tries to track down the elusive family of one of the men, she finds herself entangled in the secret histories and ongoing corruption of the Sunshine State’s seedy underbelly. At the same time unexpected revelations about her own background come to light.

SLAUGHTER FALLS has plenty of the tension (both in terms of the plotline and Markunas’s personal life), visual storytelling, and vivid action-packed moments readers loved in CUT & RUN, but is a more personal, character-based novel. While it doesn’t quite scale the thrills and mystery heights of Bosco’s debut, this sophomore effort further develops Markunas as an intriguing character worth following as the series grows. An enjoyable read.

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This review was first published in the October 2010 issue of WildTomato, the magazine of Nelson and Marlborough. You can read more about this terrific magazine here.