Stalk me (early review)

de Richard Parker

Exhibit A (25 février 2014)

384 pages - 16.99 $

I thought the idea was original and topical... Internet is full of videos taken by people who not only stop to watch an accident, but film events with little consideration for the victims. I've seen Stalk Me on Netgalley and I thank Exhibit A for the book.

The blurb

Your worst nightmare just went viral…

After being involved in a severe car accident and a vicious roadside assault, Beth Jordan wakes briefly to discover a coach party of students recording the aftermath with their phones.

Beth furiously attacks the crowd before being restrained and lapsing into a coma.

When she wakes in hospital, Beth is horrified when she’s told the video clips have been shared online and that millions of people around the world have now seen the incident.

The driver of the car she collided with has vanished without trace and Beth needs the recordings to help piece together exactly what happened.

But somebody is viciously murdering the owners of the clips and deleting them. What is concealed within those moments and can she find the survivors before the digital fragments of the event disappear forever?

What I think of it

The story mainly focuses on Beth Jordan, who tries to understand why a person could assault when she was crawling out of her car after the accident. She is smart, resourceful and courageous and as we identify with her, we're as resolved as her to discover the truth about these videos. The other characters in the novel appear briefly, often the time of the disappearance of their video, apart from the owner of the latest video and his family that we follow a longer time. So we did not really have time to connect with them, especially since they are not, a priori, really likable. They have put their online video with touts and insulting titles for Beth they name "bitch".

The pace intensifies progressively. Initially, the novel focuses on the return to life of Beth, on her discovery of the death of her husband and the fact that life went on without her. This part is very well led, it allows us to feel Beth's feelings and to understand later how horrible are the online videos. When Beth understands that they disappear go, she tries to contact the owners to find that they die one after the other. From there, the tempo accelerates as Beth must find the other owners before they disappear. Her purpose is both to warn them of the danger and finding what, in the video, is so compromising. What was once a simple quest for Beth who wanted to see the last moments of her husband, while she passed out, eventually became a real enigma. Knowing who wants to remove the video and witnesses and why doing so become her priority... and ours.

I do not like movies where the main character risks her/his life by systematically taking the wrong decision and in which the villain keeps coming back. It has the knack of getting on my nerves - literally. I usually end up yelling at the character "come now, don't go there", "c'mon, end him, or he'll come back!" I must say it's very rare that a character listens to me (if not ever) and when the film ends, the cushion of the couch lost some feathers. This book makes me feel the same way. Beth runs after the truth and harvests trouble but carry on her race anyway. So for fans of this kind of suspense, this book is excellent: go buy it! I must say that the author is very good to describe vivid scenes, especially those of fear and panic.

One thing I liked about Stalk me is the thought behind the story. What society do we form when people film others's misfortune, use it to collect crumbs of glory on the Internet or even make money with it. When people allow themselves to insult a person seen in a video without knowing his history, without knowing the context in which that person is. The ease with which people, sheltered behind the screen, criticize, injure, insult or demean others is present in the book and it reflects reality.

In a nutshell

A very interesting story, a main character in which it's easy to identify yourself, a never ending irritating suspense that blows you away. This is a 3.5/5.

Runner (early review)

by Patrick Lee

Minotaur Books (18 février 2014)

337 pages - 28.99 $

The blurb of this book, offered on NetGalley, immediately hooked me up. I liked the cover simple and effective (I'm the kind of people who thinks that covers often reflects the book). It also was a change from my reading: no murder to investigate but a chase, a desperate flight... and a mystery to break anyway. Thanks Minotaur Books for this book!

The blurb

Sam Dryden, retired special forces, lives a quiet life in a small town on the coast of Southern California. While out on a run in the middle of the night, a young girl runs into him on the seaside boardwalk. Barefoot and terrified, she’s running from a group of heavily armed men with one clear goal—to kill the fleeing child. After Dryden helps her evade her pursuers, he learns that the eleven year old, for as long as she can remember, has been kept in a secret prison by forces within the government. But she doesn’t know much beyond her own name, Rachel. She only remembers the past two months of her life—and that she has a skill that makes her very dangerous to these men and the hidden men in charge.

Dryden, who lost his wife and young daughter in an accident five years ago, agrees to help her try to unravel her own past and make sense of it, to protect her from the people who are moving heaven and earth to find them both. Although Dryden is only one man, he’s a man with the extraordinary skills and experience—as a Ranger, a Delta, and five years doing off-the-book black ops with an elite team. But, as he slowly begins to discover, the highly trained paramilitary forces on their heels is the only part of the danger they must face. Will Rachel’s own unremembered past be the most deadly of them all?

What I think of it

I must consider myself particularly fortunate early this year because I keep coming across very good books. Runner is one of them. I loved this story that has no downtime. Sam Dryden is a character we want to know in real life, not just for his fighting qualities but for his intelligence, his strength, because he's a trustworthy good guy. He's not infallible, which makes him very realistic and avoids the hero-who-never-lost-even-though-it-is-not-probable kind of character. As Sam, I also wanted to protect Rachel and help her to regain her memories. One feels that she has suffered, that she's afraid and that meeting with Sam brings her a lot, as meeting her allows Sam to regain a taste for life. So two very realistic and endearing characters we want to keep reading about, which is good since this book is the first in a series based on Sam Dryden. I can't wait to read more of his adventures !

The story will delight fans of conspiracy, SF and other techno-biological warfare. Note, however, that the SF side here is very well done, making it very plausible! We have all heard of military or government laboratories history, hidden scientific researches to find new weapons, to create better soldiers, etc. It's in the same vein and then I say no more, not to spoil the story! But know, dear reader who doesn't like this kind of story, the SF side is only a part of the book and serves as a basis to hunt down Sam and Rachel and if we know early a part of why an armed group is hunting Rachel... we learn much later the rest of her story. It follows a race against those determined to kill them and a time trial because they only have the time of their flight to hope to discover Rachel's secret. The narrative tension rises progressively along what they discover about Rachel and the arrival of new players that we don't know the intentions.

It's difficult to talk about Runner without revealing the story but one thing is for sure, it's one of those books that you'll closed by saying " blimey! I would have stayed a little longer with them." The ending is very well done, nostalgic with a touch of hope and positiveness. A too happy ending would not be realistic and a too dark end... too depressing (I hate stories that end too bad!) The author managed to make me want to read more adventures of Sam, while allowing me to close the book without an aftertaste of unfinished business that we sometimes experience in series. This is probably because the next book won't be about unanswered questions, but about a character, Sam, with whom we want to live another adventure.

In a nutshell

An excellent book, fast paced, characters that you appreciate rapidly, a well-crafted and believable story. Runner has it all, this is a 5/5!

House Bathory

by Linda Lafferty

Lake Union Publishing (January 14, 2014)

486 pages - 9.95 $

I chose this book on NetGalley, because it's about the famous Countess Bathory whom I had just discovered the crazy story in a book by Sire Cédric Of fever and blood. I told myself that this was an opportunity to mix two things I enjoy: suspense and history. Thank you Lake Union Publishing for the book!

The blurb

In the early 1600s, Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, ruled Čachtice Castle in the hinterlands of Slovakia. During bizarre nightly rites, she tortured and killed the young women she had taken on as servants. A devil, a demon, the terror of Royal Hungary—she bathed in their blood to preserve her own youth.

400 years later, echoes of the Countess’s legendary brutality reach Aspen, Colorado. Betsy Path, a psychoanalyst of uncommon intuition, has a breakthrough with sullen teenager Daisy Hart. Together, they are haunted by the past, as they struggle to understand its imprint upon the present. Betsy and her troubled but perceptive patient learn the truth: the curse of the House of Bathory lives still and has the power to do evil even now.

The story, brimming with palace intrigue, memorable characters intimately realized, and a wealth of evocative detail, travels back and forth between the familiar, modern world and a seventeenth-century Eastern Europe brought startlingly to life.

Inspired by the actual crimes of Elizabeth Báthory, The House of Bathory is another thrilling historical fiction from Linda Lafferty (The Bloodletter’s Daughter and The Drowning Guard). The novel carries readers along with suspense and the sweep of historical events both repellent and fascinating.

What I think of it

The story seemed promising and in a sense it keeps its promises. It actually has a wealth of details and travels back and forth. The historical details are so well written and the characters so realistic that I felt like I was living in the seventeenth century. According to some research I've done, the details about the Countess appear to be real, something I like in a book of historical flavor. Countess Bathory is a true horror story in herself. I don't know if the facts are true or if they are the result of rumors at the time, but it's an incredible story, rich and very fascinating for horror fans!

I was less affected and moved by  the characters in today's times, unlike those of the Bathory time. This may be because of the short chapters that move from one period to another and from one character to another . The change of point of view is a difficult exercise and its disadvantage is that it can lead the reader to not create a link with one or more characters, which was my case for this book. The other concern is towards the end, a little fast (which is a shame given the time it took to reach a confrontation !) and that gives us an explanation a little too easy in my sense.

I admit I read with pleasure 80% of the book, then I droped it for Phoenix Island that I devoured in two days, which is not a good sign. The end of the book seemed to drag on and I skimed through some paragraphs. I was anxious for the story to end and that's a shame. Sometimes I like a book to last because the atmosphere, the characters or the context is so rich that it is a pleasure to hang out in the world of the author. But not this time. As I was not particularly attached to the characters in the present time, which was less well written and less rich than the past, I did not particularly want to stay longer than expected there.

In a nutshell

I liked the historical part of the book and I feared for the characters of the time, unlike the present part of the book that dragged towards the end. A good book to learn about the Countess Bathory, but perhaps a little too long. This is a 3.5 / 5 .