Reviews: thrillers and capers

[rivkat]

Jed Rubenfeld, The Interpretation of Murder: Rather than touting its literary merit, my review copy prominently features the details of the marketing campaign for the book (half a million dollars!). Rubenfeld is a law professor at Yale, which may explain the push (he also starred in a car ad in Japan based on the same credentials). The novel is set in early-20th-century New York, when Freud made his first and only journey to America. Freud returned full of disgust for the U.S., and Rubenfeld’s novel posits that he was drawn into the investigation of serial murders of Manhattan’s elite young women. The style is peculiar; it’s like a nonfiction writer decided to write fiction without changing techniques, so the storytelling is anachronistic, not in the sense that the characters behave or think in ways that don’t make sense within their time but in the sense that the third-person omniscient sections have the perspective of someone living a century after the characters in those sections. To take an easy example, Rubenfeld uses a lot of narration that repeats “In 1909,” to remind us where we are, as a book of popular history would. As a result, many sections are distant from the characters in a way that’s uncommon in fiction and in some tension with the tighter-POV sections. I suspect readers will either find it bracing or annoying.

For all my focus on style, I do think this book has a solid concept – the idea of enlisting Freud himself to solve crimes – and the execution was relatively entertaining, until the end. The solution features an annoying Evil Overlord explanation, during which the villain stops to clarify things for the heroes in response to questions. Moreover, it reads as misogynist. Now, obviously if you’re dealing with Freud and upper-class New Yorkers at the beginning of the 20th century, your characters are going to have certain attitudes, but Rubenfeld was in charge of their actions, especially those of the characters he made up out of whole cloth, who are the central ones, and he produced pretty pure stereotypes. I’m a little leery of blaming him, because the constraints of the time encouraged women to act and think in certain ways, and yet I don’t trust that he sees women as complex individuals; his men are also bound by convention, and yet they still hold some idiosyncrasies and surprises. I can’t recommend this book.

Harlan Coben, The Innocent: Nine years ago, Matt Hunter tried to break up a fight, and ended up a convicted murderer. He’s mostly rebuilt his life now, with a good job as a paralegal and a beautiful, pregnant wife. Then he gets a picture and a video on his phone, apparently sent by his wife, and they rocket him into a conspiracy of murders and cover-ups. This might be my favorite of the Coben books I’ve read; the elaborate conspiracy, a hallmark of Coben’s work, is better justified than those in the other ones, and it moves quickly without lingering on any implausibilities.

Jonathan Kellerman, Rage: An Alex Delaware Novel: That’s pretty much it – an Alex Delaware novel: choppy sentences, irretrievably screwed-up kids, and Alex’s cardboard-angst personal life mushed together in the usual airport reading style. What puzzles me is the title. The book is about the sudden death of a kid Alex evaluated for the juvenile system eight years before, after the kid participated in killing a two-year-old girl along with another young teen, but there’s not much rage. Lots of sociopathic behavior, bitterness, and even anger, but it seems like his agent just guessed at a generically appropriate title for a thriller, and managed to miss. Also, after reading a very perceptive article about the political uses of “Safe Havens” for abandoned babies, I was very dubious about a part of the plot that involves a man who likes to get young girls pregnant and then make them have abortions – a “prenatal serial killer.” A brief review is the wrong place to get into this, but the characters’ unanimous, casual equation of abortion with murder infuriated me, and it wasn’t terribly surprising that they then didn’t do much for the girls who’d been victimized. Actually, in the end, they didn’t do much for anyone: Maybe that’s Delaware’s message after all these books, that the system is broken and breaks more people every year, but maybe that means it’s time for me to stop reading these even when I get them free.

Donald Westlake, Smoke: SF/fantasy marketed as a caper novel because it’s by Westlake. A petty thief breaks into the wrong brownstone, where mad gay scientists force him to act as their guinea pig for a treatment they’re working on to prevent skin cancer. Instead, it turns him invisible, which is a great advantage for a thief but turns out to be pretty rough on his girlfriend. Soon, he’s on the run from corrupt cops and cigarette executives, while still pulling off heists. It didn’t do much for me because, even when Westlake includes cell phones and other 90s detritus, he feels like he’s stuck in the 1970s or even 1960s (see also: thief’s cool-cat relationship with his girlfriend), and I preferred that when it was more contemporary. Also, the protagonist is isolated by virtue of the premise, and Westlake’s strength in his caper books is wacky interactions.

Comments

[joyfulseeker.livejournal.com]

the elaborate conspiracy, a hallmark of Coben’s work, is better justified than those in the other ones, and it

I think you may have an unclosed HTML tag somewhere?

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Whoops! I see what happened. Thanks.