The Abrupt Physics of Dying

The Abrupt Physics of Dying

Eco-thrillers aren’t normally my thing. It’s not that I’m not interested in the environment, I am, it’s just those I’ve read in the past have tended to be a little earnest, the author a little too intent on getting his or her message across. Paul Hardisty’s novel doesn’t suffer from this problem and I enjoyed it immensely. Don’t get me wrong, the author clearly knows his stuff and I imagine he cares deeply about the politics of oil and how corporations exploit the poor, but he doesn’t lay this on thick with a shovel. At heart this is first and foremost a cracking good thriller, as indeed it should be.

As hinted at above, the book revolves around the politics of oil. Events take place in the Yemen. The main character is a former South African soldier now working as a consultant to a petrochemical conglomerate. There’s a lot of good stuff here not often found in a crime novel. I liked the portrayal of the Yemen. While terrorism featured a little in the story, it wasn’t the major focus, which is a refreshing change in that most stories that feature the country focus on Al Qaeda. The South African protagonist was a strong character and had an interesting back-story. Other characters in the novel were well drawn out.

I did have one issue with the novel however and it’s a strange one: Paul Hardisty writes too well. No doubt you think that a strange thing to say. How can a writer write too well? What I mean is that his turn of phrase is so poetic, he describes the landscape of the Yemen so beautifully, that sometimes I found it actually detracted from the story and I became distracted from what was going on. That may well be peculiar to me, and no doubt many readers will disagree with me and welcome his talent as a wordsmith. But I found whole paragraphs of beautifully crafted text dedicated to a rock face or desert outcrop pulled me from the plot and the tension of the narrative.

One last point. At the end of the novel, the author includes the first chapter of the next book in the series. I was gripped and can’t wait to read it. In fact I enjoyed that first chapter of book two more than I enjoyed the whole of book one, which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy book one, I did immensely. Just I can’t wait to read book two, that’s all.

I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

Wake

Wake

This book has the most amazing beginning. Gripping, edge of your seat stuff. Bunch of people end up in a small coastal town, each for a differing reason, and find the residents have gone psychotically crazy. They’re hacking each other to bits, attacking anyone who comes near. They also discover that they are stuck in the town, locked in by a mysterious force field. If you think that this is a hell of a lot like Stephen King’s novel Under The Dome, you’re not wrong. Apart from the crazy, it’s exactly like that.

Unfortunately, just as Stephen King’s novel had a more than intriguing concept and a brilliant beginning, both novels share a third similarity: a bloated, far too long, and far too earnest middle. I’m sorry, I’ve read rave reviews of Elizabeth Knox’s book Wake and I just don’t know where they’re coming from. But then again this is something else she shares with the Stephen King novel.

The fact is that the greater part of this book, at least two thirds, is boring. We get the survivors trying to, well, survive basically. They have to bury the dead bodies of all the crazy people, who if they didn’t kill each other, just died. They have to round up all the dogs, feed the cats. There’s a mysterious survivor, a woman who hacked off her own breast, and yet didn’t die like the rest of the crazy residents. There’s a mysterious man in black who avoids them. As the novel goes on it’s revealed that what made the villagers go mad is till there, preying on their minds subtly, and some of the survivors start to go a little crazy.

It’s all quite dull to be honest. The book just never recaptures the promise of the beginning, even towards the end when you would assume it would pick up pace again. There were times where I nearly gave up on this novel. The only thing which kept me going was the promise of the brilliant beginning. I just kept thinking, “surely a book that starts so well can’t stay this dull?” But I’m afraid that it did.

To be fair while the ending wasn’t exciting, it did have a good concept behind it. I can see that the author had thought through where she wanted the plot to go. It’s just a pity she couldn’t carry the novel off with the flair it deserved.

I would give this book 2 out of 5 stars. 

Once Upon a Time in Melbourne

Once Upon a Time in Melbourne

Well what to say about this book? It’s blurb is a history, an exposure if you will, of events that occurred in Melbourne at the turn of the century – political shenanigans, organised crime, corrupt cops, by all accounts the city had it all. It should be a gripping a read; especially for somebody like me who’s twin interests are politics and crime. And I’m sure for an Australian reader, and moreover one from that part of Australia, it is.

The problem is that the writer has such a flowery, and dare I say it, parochial writing style, that it just doesn’t translate to anyone unfamiliar with Melbourne, Australia, and the political culture therein. Some writers have an ability to transport the reader to a place and time across the globe. They have a way of bringing an environment to life, regardless of whether the reader has any experience of it. In fact that’s part of the joy, whether reading fiction or non-fiction, being transported to different worlds, experiencing events almost as vividly as if you yourself were there. The author failed to do this for me on this occasion and to be honest half the time I was left cold.

 The other problem with this book is that the chapters were so disjointed, dealing as they did with different characters in each. It was hard to see how people and events described related to each. Even towards the end when the narrative began to come together, I wasn’t entirely convinced that they did. Don’t get me wrong, I accept that all non-fiction narratives in a sense construct a reality, in that an authors’ role is to interpret the world and relate people and events together to make sense of them. Without that one would be left with just a series of random points. But a good book makes the author’s narration seem natural, and at least while reading, the only possible narration. I never felt this with this book.

Once Upon a Time in Melbourne is a good effort and the author clearly has a passion for the city and for his story. It’s just a pity that he was unable to get that across to this reader.

I would give this book 2 out of 5 stars.