The King of Torts

The King of Torts is the 10th book I've read by John Grisham. I suppose that makes him one of "my" authors although he has his share of let downs. Ever since I read The Firm years ago, I've looked for that magic once more but so far they've always seemed to fall a tad short.

I'm still not exactly what to make of this one. It is one of the better ones of Mr. Grisham's works that I've read, despite the nit picking that I'm about to do. It's a page turner for sure and I kept reading way past my bed time. That has to be a good sign right? Mr. Grisham does have a way of writing page turners; his language is for the common man, his chapters are fairly short so it's easy to think, "just one more chapter." * * SPOILER ALERT ** Sorry about this spoiler but its difficult to discuss this work without it. This novel could easily be classified as a tragedy in that we watch young attorney Clay Carter rise from a humble life in the Public Defender’s Office in Washington DC to become the newest "King of Torts", suing huge drug companies and others on behalf of wronged victims...only to have his empire crash and burn around him at the end. * * END SPOILER * *

As I said, it's a page turner but I do have some issues with the novel. The characters (particularly the protagonist) didn't always respond and behave the way I expected based on the first third of the book. In other words, I had come to know him pretty well through the various scenes and see how he reacts to events. But occasionally he does things completely out of character, yanking me right out of the narrative. Coupled with that, a couple of times I felt like the author was not treating me, the reader, with respect. I'm not a lawyer but in the course of the novel, we get a good dose of what tort litigation is all about and how it works, at least for a layman's perspective. But when a technique served well in the first part of the book, and the protagonist was well satisfied with the results, he tried it again and for no apparent reason it didn't fly the next time. It's as if the author ignored the investment the readers would make with the characters in order to make sure the plot worked as he wanted. As an example, there is one crucial court drama happening in the background during the final third of the book. * * SPOILER ALERT ** It's crucial to the plot and to what happens to our protagonist. We, the reader, along with the protagonist are led down the path of just how great it's going for our side, how amazingly the lawyer is skewering the opponent’s expert witnesses, how the jury is eating it up, and when the jury comes back with the verdict...we lose. That's it. No explanation. I know you can just never really tell with a jury but it seemed contrived by the author to disrespect the reader in order to get the ending he wanted.  * * END SPOILER * *

Yes, I am being hard on Mr. Grisham. But I'm sure his bestselling book sales will withstand my criticism just fine. And I expect a lot from him. The book was still fun to read and I'll keep reading him (I have at least 3 more on my shelves). But I'm still hoping for that great one.

The Raiders

We had an early snow/wind storm this morning so I was allowed a two hour delay in coming in to work. That allowed me to finish up The Raiders by Harold Robbins. This is the sequel to the The Carpetbaggers, one of the most successful bestsellers of all time. However, this one was written 34 years after the first one and I can tell you it is not nearly as good.

It is now 1951 and the main character, Jonas Cord ( a Howard Hughes type of tycoon) is under subpoena to appear before a Senate committee about his business practices. So he flees to Mexico where he discovers that he has an illegitimate son by an old girlfriend. The novel becomes as much about the son as it does about the father, especially how the son is becoming just like his father. Along the way, the Cords move into the Las Vegas scene, building hotels and casinos, nudging in on mafia territory. At the same time their Hollywood production studios turns to television production. I wish the story focused on that as well as the father-son relationship but unfortunately, it gets bogged down with numerous lesser characters including their extensive back stories. I did enjoy the cameo appearances by prominant people of the times such as Jack and Bobby Kennedy, Jimmy Hoffa, Che Guevera, Jack Benny, as well as several mobsters that I'm not sure are historical or fictional. But the story really suffers from cardboard Hollywood starlets, cliche'd mobster types, and the never ending sexual escapades of both father and son. Harold Robbins is known for that kind of thing but since The Carpetbaggers contained several well-developed characters, and a good plot, I had hoped for the same thing here.

The only satisfaction I got from the novel is to see what happened to the various characters from the first novel. There was some closure on that and there was a fairly happy ending. All the same, I'm glad this one is behind me.

I was also able to read the last of Harlan Ellison's short stories in the current section of The Essential Ellison. "Strange Wine" was a quick read and concerned a space alien that had been living on Earth as a human. He's had many bad experiences here on Earth, including the death of his daughter, estranged wife, etc...so bad that he commits suicide. But then he wakes up back on his native planet and is reminded of the horrible lives they all lived there. The moral of the story seems to be that if we really think about it, life is good. It was an odd story to me and seemed to be missing something. This isn't the first time that Mr Ellison has made me feel I am not intelligent enough to fully appreciate his writing :) Since this section of this large volume of stories is now complete, I'll turn to a different collection of short stories next.

Next up for novels: I've been feeling the need for some old fashioned fantasy fiction, not necessarily high brow stuff, so I think I will turn to the first of "The Harpers" series, The Parched Sea, by Troy Denning.

Telegraph Days

Over the weekend I completed Larry McMurtry's Telegraph Days. This one was a pretty quick read due to its easy flowing style and first person narrative technique. Marie Antoinette "Nellie" Courtright narrates her own life story, most of it taking place in her 20's. Now I've read Lonesome Dove as well as the three companion volumes to that novel and this book is no Lonesome Dove. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. Lonesome Dove won the pulitzer prize for literature, presumably for the quality of the writing. My feeling is that it won for the sheer audacity of it. After all, it took the "Western" style of fiction away from the predictable cowboys and indian structure of Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour and steered it towards something completely new and different. Well, here we have another type of western novel that is different.

This novel seems to be purposefully over-the-top. By that I mean, Mr McMurtry cares little for realism this time around and focuses instead on the impossible-to-believe. Here we have a 22-year old young lady living at the end of the "Wild West" days that manages to meet, interact with, influence, and sleep with virtually all of the famous folk of the day. This includes Wild Bill Hickock, General Custer, Buffalo Bill Cody, Wyatt Earp and all of his brothers. Her journey (in just one book mind you) takes her from her western home in Rita Blanca (present day Oklahoma panhandle), to Dodge City, Nebraska, Arizona (where she witnessed the shootout at the OK Corral) and finally on to Arizona. She is vitally important to Buffalo Bill's Wild West show getting off the ground and she becomes a bestselling author of dime novels of the era. Unlikely? Yes. Enjoyable entertainment? Absolutely!

It seems many readers tend to dislike this book. The author will forever have his other work compared to Lonesome Dove, I suppose, and readers seem to expect that sort of book. I have also read all four of McMurtry's "Berrybinder Narratives" which is of the same nature as this one...storys filled with over-the-top, humerous situations and quirky characters. I enjoyed this novel as I think many would if they gave it a chance to stand on it's own and not try to cram it into a certain mold. Too often I think we get wrapped around the idea of what makes a quality novel and we forget that we can just sit back, relax, and enjoy it for what it is.

Next up, I'll be diving into The Nezovats in Despair, a fantasy book that was sent to me by the author in order for me to review it on Amazon. I'll let you know what I think here as well.

The Academy

The final book I read on my Spring Break trip (actually only made it half way through before the trip ended so I finished over the weekend) was The Academy by Bentley Little. Mr Little writes in the horror genre and this is perhaps the 8th or 9th book I've read by him. He likes to take ordinary circumstances that most of us have had to to deal with and then put in a horror element that then spirals out of control. Previous topics have included The Store, one of my favorites which turns the local chain box store (Walmart type) into an evil presence in the community. He has written similar things with a house, a university, a town, a home owner's association, etc. My favorite Bentley Little book so far was The Ignored which deals with an adolescent who is shy and so ignored by friends, family, and school that he literally fades out and becomes virtually invisible and discovers there are others like him. It seems like many of us can relate to that. Beware though; if you've never read a Bentley Little novel, they do tend to be very sexual, many times graphically so.

Unfortunately, The Academy will rank among the lower end of the Bentley Little books I've read. I was intrigued by the cover blurb because this time the evil surrounds a charter high school. Since my son attends a charter high school I was curious as to how the evil would manifest. The main plot proceeded in a predictable pattern, probably too predictable. If this was my first book by this author that might not have bothered me too much but it seems like this one was sort of a retread of his other works. I read in the author bio at the end of the book that Mr Little spent at least a little time in his life as a teacher. It sure didn't seem like he knew much about charter schools though; more like he was using talking points put out by the NEA depicting charter schools as "bad". He takes those things on faith and exploits them for the purposes of horror. The problem though is that those talking points are biased opinions put out by an organization that is threatened by the very existence of charter schools. No doubt some charter schools are better than others but Mr Little seems to paint them all with a broad brush here. And it's not a pretty picture.

He also fails to disguise his anti-conservative political views. I really don't care where on the political spectrum my authors dwell, and if a particular character is blatently liberal or blatently conservative that's fine, especially if it pertains to the story. But if you are going to editorialize then at least get the basic principles correct. There are parts in this book that you'd swear were written by Michael Moore.

But what irked me the most was the stupid characters. Not one of them acted like any normal, rational person would act. When confronted by the off-the-wall "requirements" for parents to volunteer their time and money (or else) , the parents thought it odd. I would have found a new school for my child. When a student sees the girls' physical education teacher engage in obvious (and sick) sexual behavior with the entire class, she tells her best friend but that's it. These kinds of incidents, resulting from the growing evil, are numerous and serve only to demonstrate the stupidity of the characters as they fail time and again to do anything about it.

Mr Little does write in a page-turning style which works though. Despite the negative aspects of the plot and characterization it was pretty easy to keep reading. I guess I was hopeful that in the end, when the evil was finally discovered and dealt with, there would be some redemption. Unfortunately, the book fell flat here as well. The evil was known from almost the first page and it was a mercy killing at the end, for the reader. Of course the charter school converted back to a regular public school and all was good again. Disappointing to say the least. I may still read books by Mr Little in hopes for another one like The Ignored but it may be a while.

For my short story reading I selected the collection of Native American myths that has been sitting on my shelf for years. I won't comment on each of the stories this time because they are quite short and I'll be reading 2-3 between each novel. When the book is done, I'll blog about it then.

Next up for novel reading: Telegraph Days by Larry McMurtry

More Twisted

I've broken one of my own rules today. Normally I read a short story after every full length book I read. Followers of this blog may remember that I used to never really like short stories. They always seemed...well... short. I like to get into my reading and not have it end 5-10 minutes after the story starts. But since I hadn't read too much short fiction I decided I wasn't being fair so I set up the 'one short story for every regular book' rule. And it's worked. I now have a deep appreciation for a well-tuned short story. I sometimes wonder if I should do the same thing for poetry because I really don't care for that either.

So what happened for me to break my own rule you ask? Well, next week is Spring Break week around here and so my family and I will be embarking on a rather long road trip to the NW where my son plans to visit potential college campuses. (If anybody has opinions, feel free to share them with me). Consequently, I didn't want to begin another book just a couple of days before the trip commences. And since I had only two short stories left in the More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II by Jeffrey Deaver I decided to wrap up that volume. So there you have it, a one time only stretching of the rules.

The last two stories in the collection were good ones. "Ninety-eight Point Six" was a more typical twisted story. I knew right from the beginning who the twist would revolve around (the one that seemed the most innocent). However, the how of it was a nice surprise. The final entry in the collection, "A Nice Place to Visit" was a bit of a departure from the other stories. It was much darker and more brutal than the other stories. Perhaps that is why this was selected for the final piece of the book. The twists kept coming in this one, almost too many because it became a bit difficult to follow. I did enjoy it though and was very happy with the conclusion.

So overall the second half of the book really saved this collection. At this point I would definitely read more of Mr Deaver's short stories. I'm not so sure about his longer works with his signature character Lincoln Rhymes. It's not because I don't think I would enjoy them but rather because I already have a lot of authors in the thriller genre with on-going series...I can't keep up as it is. But who knows? I've been known to impulse buy occasionally. Just yesterday, in fact, I was at the library to return my audio book and I purchased two more Louis L'Amour books from the library's fund-raising store. Can't ever have too many of those. The price was right but that means two more books on my to-be-read list. I am "down" to only 305 books now that I own but haven't read. Sigh...

I'm not yet sure which collection of short stories I will pick up next. I have a classic Stephen King that I'm considering or I may choose a collection of Aboriginal legends and myths that I picked up in Australia years ago. Also there is a similar collection of Native American legends I could choose...or...well, we'll see. And of course I get to pick what to take with me on the trip that starts Friday. The only one I know for sure will be Wilbur Smith's The Seventh Scroll, a sequel to River God that I raved about at the beginning of the year. Picking them out is half the fun!

See you when I return from the trip and start blogging about all I've read.

Short Stories

Every time I finish reading a novel I will read a short story. I began this process about 8 years ago because I found myself never reading any short stories at all. It's not that I mind reading them but I dislike reading many short stories in a row. So...in order to actually read some, particularly those collections that I already had sitting on my shelf, I started this process. Right now I am reading Jeffery Deaver's More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II. I picked up this volume during my family's Alaskan Cruise this past year. We had on-board coupons to use for merchandise and I used most of mine to pick out a few books from their very limited supply. I've wanted to try Jeffery Deaver for quite some time but have been so focused on whittling down my large "to-be-read" pile that I just haven't acquired any of his works.

The cover marketing on this book emphasizes the twists that Mr Deaver is famous for. That may be true but so far (I've finished 3 stories to this point) they have been a bit more predicatable than I was expecting. I enjoyed the second story, "The Commuter" quite a bit, releashing the protagonist's falling victim to his own arrogance. But I could see that coming from the beginning. The "twist" was more about how it would happen than the fact that it did happen. I think I was expecting a bit more Jeffery Archer style stories perhaps. The third story, "The Westphalian Ring" was a pretty good read but (**SPOILER ALERT**) I disliked the way Sherlock Holmes was presented at the end. Yes, I also get perturbed from time to time when Sherlock picks out all of the clues by cursory examination and concludes "facts" that could have led him in an altogether different direction. I think Deaver is making fun of this here but somehow it violates a cardinal rule of published fiction: Don't mess with other author's characters by making them look stupid, particularly such well-loved classic characters as Sherlock Holmes.

Right now it's on to the the third "Repairman Jack" novel, Conspiracies. So far it's great!