The Last Town on Earth; Damage Control; Power Play -- Book Reviews
I need to catch up on some books that I’ve read but not yet reviewed. Instead of posting full-length reviews that I may have written elsewhere, I’m just going to do some short reviews with recommendations.
The Last Town on Earth
By Thomas Mullen
Random House
$23.95, hard back, 394 pages, 1-4000-6520-8 (2006)
This is a first novel that promises more than it delivers. The premise is a good one: a small mill town in the Pacific Northwest in 1918 gets word that a deadly flu is sweeping the nation. While the World War I is raging, the town of Commonwealth votes to quarantine itself against the deadly virus.
Soon word spreads of the isolated town and people want to enter. The town posts guards at the single road leading in and out of town. A tired, hungry – and perhaps ill – soldier comes upon the road and begs to be let in. The guards include warn the soldier off, but he keeps coming. Soon, the guards take action and the result changes everything for the town and all its residents.
This book raises the question of how far you’d go to protect your town, your job, and your family. The novel at its heart is about fear. The townspeople are afraid of catching the often-fatal flu; afraid of allowing a soldier into their town whom they believe might possibly be a spy; afraid of those living in a nearby town who might contaminate them. Some of these fears may be justified, some not.
I enjoyed this novel until I was about ¾ of the way through it. By that time, the story took a turn outside the town and seemed to lose focus. When the story focused on the hopes and fears of the townspeople, it was riveting.
Buy it here.
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Damage Control
By Robert Dugoni
Warner Brothers
$24.99, hard back, 406 pages, 0-446-57870-3 (2007)
This is the second novel of this fine young writer. I enjoyed his debut novel, The Jury Master, and had high hopes for this book. Though enjoyable, this book does not live up to the wonderful storytelling displayed in the earlier work.
Dana Hill is a successful lawyer when tragedy strikes in threes: she’s diagnosed with breast cancer; she catches her husband in an affair; and her twin brother James is brutally murdered during a robbery attempt. In these types of novels, nothing, of course, is as it appears.
Not satisfied that her brother’s case is being properly investigated, Dana plunges into the investigation of who murdered her brother. She discovers an exotic earring at her brother’s house and with the help of a detective, traces who made it. In doing so, she puts her life in danger.
If you can’t suspend your belief enough to accept all the bad things that happen to Dana and simply follow her along in her investigation, instead of wondering why she’s putting off her cancer treatment, then this novel is not for you. Accept this basic premise, and the twisting plot will keep you in suspense right up until the end of the book.
Enjoyable – just not riveting.
Buy it here.
Power Play
By Joseph Finder
St. Martin’s Press
$24.95, hardback, 384 pages, 0-312-34748-0 (2007)
If you liked the movie Die Hard, you’ll love this book.
Jake Landry is a junior executive with California's Hammond Aerospace. He’s a tough guy who knows all about airplane engineering, office politics, and a whole lot more. The new female CEO believes someone in the company is corrupt and asks Jake to accompany her and the rest of the company’s top executives to a remote off-site location for a corporate retreat. This place is so far in the boonies that communication with the outside world is very difficult – and it soon becomes nearly impossible.
Just as in the movie, the executives are taken captive and the only one who can do anything at all to save them is Jake. Their captors want $500 million from the company in order to free them. Jake knows that if they get the money, everyone will be killed. The time has come for action and Jake has hidden talents that make him more than a match for his brutal captors.
The heart-pounding suspense and clever plot twists are enough to feed the adrenaline junkie in any reader. Sure the characters aren’t always fleshed out and Jake turns into a one-man army, but you’ll barely notice as you turn the pages late into the night.
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