It’s been a busy
month. I’m in the final stages of production for my new thriller, Powder Burn, and I’ve been reading quite
a bit of non-fiction as research for a new Janac’s Games short story called The Sniper.
It’ll be the next book after Powder Burn,
and the first of several about Janac’s time in Vietnam. The idea is to track how
he made it through the war, and developed contacts in that part of the world to
build his drug empire. I thought I’d call them the Origins books to separate them from the main novels.
So, I’ve been
reading various accounts of the Vietnam War, and remembering the nature of that
horrific conflict. Long before there were suicide bombers in Iraq, there were
sappers in Vietnam. I grew up in a world saturated with Second World War
stories and movies, and I can still remember reading a newspaper headline
announcing that American casualties had reached 50,000 in Vietnam. I was very
young and I didn’t even know that there had been a war going on - how could
that be possible? Wars were something that happened in the distant past, not
now, and certainly not with America involved.
I remember it so
vividly for two reasons; firstly it was a massive wake-up call to a child - I was new to
this world and I needed to pay attention. I’ve been a huge follower of current
affairs ever since. And secondly, as I learned more and more about Vietnam I
began to slide from a belief in a black and white world of good and evil to one
filled with shades of grey. Michael Herr’s book Dispatches was central to that coming of age. I still live in that
world today, as anyone who has read the Janac’s
Games books will know. It feels appropriate to be returning to the Vietnam
War to tell more of his story.
All of which is a
long way of saying that I won’t be reviewing the non-fiction. I had a go at one
in the last blog round up, but I think I’d rather stick to reviewing what I
know about - thrillers. And last month I read a couple of highly contrasting,
but linked, books.
I first became
aware of Barry Eisler after the controversy surrounding his decision to turn
down a serious amount of money from a traditional publisher, in favour of
bringing the books out himself. Subsequently, he accepted a deal with one of
Amazon’s publishing imprints, and hasn’t looked back. Meanwhile, I became a fan
of his blog; his writing on book marketing, the publishing industry and
politics is always engaging, entertaining and usually right on the money.
I’m not sure why it
has taken me this long to try one of his thrillers – I think it was the lack of
availability as a reasonably priced e-book, something that Eisler is planning
to fix. But having finally got to it, I’m happy to report that Eisler deserved
every penny of whatever money Amazon threw at him – The Detachment is an
excellent book by a man as fascinated with the shades of grey as I am.
Eisler has been
writing about the assassin John Rain for a while, and this is the latest of
those books. I guess it’s not an ideal place to start as I came into it with
none of Rain’s backstory – but it didn’t matter. The book works perfectly well
as a stand-alone thriller, while the writer still encouraged me to go back and
read the earlier ones by making some adroit references to Rain’s previous
adventures.
Barry Eisler’s bio
says he worked for the CIA in a covert position, and it shows. Or, at least it
shows as far as I – a civilian – can tell. The book has an incredibly authentic
feel, that’s the first thing. The second is that it rips along at pace, with a
rock solid and all-to believable underlying conspiracy at the centre of the
plot. John Rain, the conflicted killer is a terrific central protagonist, and the
other characters that make up The Detachment are all well drawn and keep you
guessing. My pulse was racing in the final set-piece shoot up – only the
denouement of Argo has matched that recently. I hope we see more of Rain, and
the other characters in The Detachment, but I will most certainly be reading
more Eisler either way – ‘nuff said about this one. Five stars.
Ironically, John
Locke also came to my attention as a result of an ebook publishing controversy
– he was one of the first really successful independents. He wrote a book
called How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5Months! and I have a copy - I know, I know, sucker. I even read it, and I thought there was one interesting marketing
idea and I went so far as to try it. It didn’t work. It turns out the book was probably b******s.
Allegedly, Locke was successful because he had the cash from his other
businesses to pay for 300 book reviews on Amazon, enough to get him off the
launch pad.
I didn’t want to
like this book, and to start with I didn’t – particularly coming to it off the
back of the hyper-real Eisler book. The central character Donnie Creed is an
assassin just like John Rain, but that’s where the comparison ends - there is
nothing real about him. He has himself tortured to build up his resistance to
pain, sleeps in other people’s attics to build up his skills at undetected
intrusion, and otherwise lives in a prison cell so he’s used to it when he
inevitably goes to jail. Right. Of course he does.
And then, with the
help of a Goodreads friend, I got it. It’s not meant to be real or anything
like it - this is black comedy, satire. And as such, it’s not bad at all – so long
as you can get past the grim violence. The writing is uneven and could use a
decent editor and personally, I didn’t find it laugh out loud funny.
Nevertheless, Locke has created a very engaging character in Donnie Creed, and his
first person narrative voice does keep you turning the pages. I doubt I’ll buy
another one, as it’s not really my cup of tea, but I can see why Locke has sold
a lot of books. Three stars.
