Gray Matter by Nick Pirog / Darkness, My Old Friend by Lisa Unger /The Lucifer Genome by John Jeter, Glen Craney

Rating: WARTY!

Here we go with another three-fer!

Gray Matter by Nick Pirog

"When former cop Thomas Prescott returns to Seattle, he discovers the governor’s corpse floating in the cove behind his boyhood home."

AND

Darkness, My Old Friend by Lisa Unger

"When retired cop Jones Cooper receives an unexpected visit, he plunges into an intricate mystery."

AND

The Lucifer Genome by John Jeter, Glen Craney

It took two to write this redux: "When a relic containing ancient human DNA is stolen, former Army ranger Cas must come out of retirement to track it down." Why? Why must he? Why an Army Ranger? Why not a trained detective? Seriously fucked-up is what this shit is.

How are these in an way different given that they all rely on the tired trope of a 'retiree' being 'forced' back into service? Seriously? Are there any new ideas out there? Any at all? Bueller?

The Burning Girl by Lisa Unger

Title: The Burning Girl
Author: Lisa Unger
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Rating: WARTY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new novel is reward aplenty!

Today I'm reviewing a pair of short stories (actually novelettes, but they felt like short stories, being short and a fast read!) by Lisa Unger, The Whispers and The Burning Girl, which is a kind of a sequel to the first. Both of these were rather unsatisfactory in that they had no real ending, although the first The Whispers) was an acceptable read. This one, The Burning Girl was not, and I'll tell you why here.

Let me just say right up front that I don't believe in the supernatural - not any of it - because there is no actual real evidence for any supernatural things or events, whereas there's ample evidence of people's endless capacity for self-delusion. I do love a good story about those things though, if it's told well, and has some interesting characters and events.

I don't normally talk about book covers because this blog is about writing, not fancy dress, and the author typically has nothing whatsoever to do with the cover (unless they wisely self-publish), but what we have here is yet another case of a cover designer designing a cover without, evidently, having the first clue what the story is about! I must congratulate Big Publishing™ once again for showing how royally they can screw-up a book!

The woman on the cover appears to be the same model who was on the cover of the first in this trilogy, but this second novelette is set ten years on and Eloise is ten years older and has more mileage weighing her down than is good for anyone, yet none of this is represented on the cover! The 'burning girl' is a young girl in the story, not a "smokin' babe" which is clearly what's being aimed for on this cover (in that background image), so the cover is a major disaster which misrepresents the story shamefully.

But the cover is nothing when all is said and done. It's the writing that's important, and the writing here is all about Eloise Montgomery. I call it a "kind of sequel" because it's set ten years after The Whispers, and really has nothing to do with the first story. Yes, it's the same character, and yes, she still has a surviving daughter and a friend who used to be a cop, and she still gets visions, but this story seemed so disconnected from the first that it may as well have been a different story. It also really doesn't involve anyone but Eloise, and it's pretty much all about how badly done-to she feels.

Eloise is essentially wallowing in her misery throughout the story, and that wasn't even remotely appealing to me. She's even weaker and less engaging here than she was in the first story, which I found to be an acceptable read. In this story, she's falling apart and whiny. It's all "me" all the time and it's tedious. There's nothing to attract a reader to her, and everything to repulse one.

She's letting herself go - and by that I don't mean in the typically accepted idea of failing to dress nice or to put on make-up (I couldn't care less about that in a character), but in that she's simply not taking care of herself and has no interests at all outside of her obsession with this one vision she keeps having - which ultimately goes nowhere. It's like Eloise has no interest in life and no motivation, and this left me with no interest in her, and no motivation to read about her, but the fact that she was an entirely unappealing character wasn't even the worst part of it!

The worst part was that the title is completely misleading. It's very dramatic, yes, but completely misleading. The burning girl is a vision Eloise has, and it keeps returning and getting worse, and worse, and more and more feisty, and then it completely fizzles with no actual resolution.

If you count Eloise letting it go, then yes, there was a resolution, but if, as a writer, you title your story 'The Burning Girl' and obsess on this character throughout it, building and building upon it, and then simply wave it away at the end like it's really nothing, then what do you have, really? Nothing. There is no resolution. If Arthur Doyle had simply ended The Hound of the Baskervilles without revealing what the hound was or who was behind it all, but had Holmes simply say, oh let's not fuss over it, would you consider that a classic? I sure wouldn't. But that's exactly what the author does here.

Or are we expected to accept that the entire second novelette is actually nothing more than a huge teaser for the third installment, where the burning girl issue is resolved at last? I don't know, and I certainly have no intention of reading any more because I really don't care anymore. The publisher was right in chanting: "a spellbinding story that will leave you wanting more". The reason you want more is because you've been cheated of an ending.

The Whispers by Lisa Unger

Title: The Whispers
Author: Lisa Unger
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new novel is reward aplenty!

Today I'm reviewing a pair of short stories (actually novelettes, but they felt like short stories, being short and a fast read!) by Lisa Unger, The Whispers and The Burning Girl, which is a kind of a sequel to the first. Both of these were rather unsatisfactory in that they had no real ending, although the first (this one, The Whispers) was an acceptable read. The other wasn't. I'll explain why in that review.

Let me say up front that I don't believe in spirits or visions, or gods or ghosts, or any of this supernatural stuff, such as witchcraft or demons or angels or flying saucers or Sasquatch - none of that! - because there is no actual real evidence for any of it, whereas there's ample evidence of people's endless capacity for self-delusion. I do love good fiction about those things though, if it's told well, and has some interesting characters and events.

The story is about Eloise Montgomery, a married woman with two daughters in high school, Amanda and Emily who are as different as chalk and cheese, and a loved and devoted husband, Alfie. The four are out in the car one day driving off to school and work when a trucker falls asleep at the wheel, crosses the line, and sideswipes the car, killing the two family members who were on that side: Alfie, and Emily.

Note that this isn't much of a spoiler because this happens right at the beginning of the story and is more like a prologue to it. See, writers? You can incorporate your prologue right into chapter one! Lisa Unger has proved it! NO MORE PROLOGUES!!!

Eloise is a weak person and this is too much for both her and Amanda. Amanda shuts down, refusing to speak for weeks. Eloise almost shuts down herself, but hangs on by a thread for no other reason than Amanda. Soon, Eloise begins seeing ghosts, or visions, or future events. It's not really very clear exactly what's happening or what she's seeing. She hears whispers in the air, hence the title of the story. She does not handle any of this at all well.

The main event here is that of a young girl who is alone and cold, and appears to have fallen down a well. Eloise sees her, like she's with her and like she is her, and becomes convinced that this girl won't survive another night. She calls in her vision to the cops and the girl is discovered alive. Then Eloise, like she doesn't have enough on her plate already, has to deal with the publicity surrounding these events.

This novel doesn't really end. It simply kinda stops, like that that's the end of episode one in a TV show - or more accurately, like it's the end of the first segment of the show and now we're cutting to a commercial break. I understand that this is part of a trilogy and I think it's sad that not only can we not get away from trilogies, but that it looks like it's come to the point where we're now splitting a single novel into three novellas just so we can have a trilogy. That's simply warped, to me.

I didn't appreciate that, because it seemed like the reader is being teased for a series, when the events could have been adequately related in one book. It felt a bit like a bait-and-switch in some ways, being promised a story and getting only an episode, and that's not something I'm up for at all, but having said that, the story itself was well told and had some interesting events, and interesting people, so I'm rating this one a worthy read.

Where I felt this went wrong was in killing off both the husband and the daughter. I think it would have made for a much more entertaining read if both daughters had survived. Actually it probably would have also worked better if the husband had survived and the whole family had to deal with the change in Eloise, but that's not what we got. What we did get was just enough for me.