Review: DARK COUNTRY by Darren E. Laws

From the back of the book:
The second novel featuring FBI agent Georgina O'Neil finds her faced with her most challenging and disturbing case yet

Susan Dark, a singer on the verge of stardom, goes missing. Her mother and grandmother, both country and western stars, were kidnapped and murdered 20 years apart as they were about to hit the big time. Is there a connection or is this the work of a copycat? Is Susan Dark about to follow the family tradition? FBI agent Georgina O'Neil and ex-detective Leroy La Portiere find themselves embroiled in the investigation to find Susan Dark, when a sudden and catastrophic illness leaves Georgina on the outside of the FBI, fighting for her life while struggling to save the singer and hold on to everything dear in her life. 

My Review:
Plagued by a violent family history, country singer Susan Dark has lost her mother and grandmother to murder. Now she finds herself the third victim of a generational murderer hell bent on repeating history. Trapped, confused, bloodied, and without hope, Susan's family ghosts haunt her, their sickly sweet whisper on the winds of the reaper omnipresent as each passing day in captivity drives another nail in her proverbial coffin. 

FBI Agent Georgina O'Neil and private detective Leroy La Portiere are tasked with finding Susan before she descends to the grave joining her murdered family members. 

The narrative embraces the dark nature of the plot with the characters themselves equally haunted by the threat of impending violence; a mood well captured both in the descriptive nature of the place-setting and the characters' dialogue: 

"I am heading to a dark country and there are people who will dance on my grave when I am gone."

"Just before drifting off into unconsciousness the notion occurred to [her] that she might be dead, the corners of her mouth raised slightly, trying to form a smile."

While following the traditional path of the popular crime fiction formula, DARK COUNTRY does up the ante in terms of its evocative nature to shock and awe readers with scenes not for the feint of heart - making it appealing to readers of darker fiction and mainstream crime fiction alike. 

DARK COUNTRY is the second book to feature FBI Agent Georgina O'Neil and is new-reader friendly, a key element I look for when jumping into series books post that first volume. There is enough back-story to gain an appreciation of what came before without it hindering or diverting attention away from the events of DARK COUNTRY. 

I enjoyed DARK COUNTRY and will look to nab a copy of its predecessor TURTLE ISLAND. 

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This is a weekly meme hosted by Book Journey. In order to get some consistency to my posting I thought I’d jump on board this great idea. As a self-proclaimed bookaholic, I love talking about my books and finding out what others are reading. Having been a long time reader of multiple blogs where the ‘It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?’ post is prevalent, I thought it a natural progression I’d add to the mix.

WHEN YOU RUN WITH WOLVES by Robert White

Kidnap, robbery, bombs and guns. Then it all went wrong...

Jack Trichaud only wanted a quiet life in small town Ohio. But when you’re in possession of nearly a million dollars from a bank robbery gone wrong, life is anything but quiet. On the one hand, Agent Pippin is searching for the evidence that will pin the robbery on Jack and send him away for a good long time. On the other hand, violent White Power thug Calderone – aided by his merciless girlfriend and Jack’s own long lost brother – wants the money and he doesn’t care who he has to hurt to get it. In fact, the more pain Jack suffers the happier Calderone will be.

Jack has more than a few cards up his sleeve, but blood will be spilled and he’s going to need every trick in the book to make sure it’s not his. Or not too much of it, anyway.

THE BURGLAR WHO LIKED TO QUOTE KIPLING by Lawrence Block

Bernie Rhodenbarr has gone legit -- almost -- as the new owner of a used bookstore in New York's Greenwich Village. Of course, dusty old tomes don't always turn a profit, so to make ends meet, Bernie's forced, on occasion, to indulge in his previous occupation: burglary. Besides which, he likes it.

Now a collector is offering Bernie an opportunity to combine his twin passions by stealing a very rare and very bad book-length poem from a rich man's library.

The heist goes off without a hitch. The delivery of the ill-gotten volume, however, is a different story. Drugged by the client's female go-between, Bernie wakes up in her apartment to find the book gone, the lady dead, a smoking gun in his hand, and the cops at the door. And suddenly he's got to extricate himself from a rather sticky real-life murder mystery and find a killer - before he's booked for Murder One.

Pick Up A Pulp [10]: THE FINAL FEAR by Laurance Janifer

Laurance Janifer is most renowned for his sci-fi and surreal stories, of which he was proficient in all forms of fiction during the 1960's and 70's. However, during my research, what most impressed me about Janifer was discovering that he'd once collaborated with Donald Westlake - one of the great writers in noir of all time. That interesting footnote aside, Janifer published two pulps, both in 1967, THE FINAL FEAR and YOU CANT ESCAPE. I stumbled upon THE FINAL FEAR by pure chance a couple of weeks ago (see Pick Up A Pulp [9]) in a discount bin, purchasing purely for the pulp art cover alone. 

While the synopsis didn't sound all that intriguing (and poorly written on the back of book), I thought it was worth a read, especially given the relative speed by which I could finish the book as it clocks in at 140pgs, generously formatted to pad the count a little.

From the back of the book:
It had started in the arms of the woman I loved - or thought I did. But it wasn't going to end there. Her husband wanted to put me on a slab in the morgue... and it's hard to remember that the old rules don't apply any more.

I could be shot dead in broad daylight in the middle of a crowd of witnesses. I can't forget - I can't never forget  - that a man with a gun is stalking me, a who whose single-minded idea of vengeance feeds his passion for murder.   

My Review:
I've got to admit, I was very underwhelmed by THE FINAL FEAR. What attracted me to the book, the cover, was the only real highlight - and that doesn't even have a direct correlation to the plot or characters (the main female character is a redhead, the cover lead has dark hair). Whilst this trait isn't all that uncommon in pulp art, it did irk me in this case, mainly as I was wanting some redeemable quality to the book - at least a cover that depicted the characters would've made a better impression than random art.

As far as the plot goes, it's one made of cat and mouse with a hint of madness thrown in and no character development whatsoever. Basically a man has an affair with a married women whose husband has a terminal illness and only six months to live. The husband is also impotent. Seeking some form of intimacy she lures James Roe into her bed and into the firing line. Naturally the husband catches wind of the affair and seeks to kill Roe before his own illness takes him. 

This could have been a half decent read; there are a few solid ideas here that aren't fully executed or abandoned altogether; the hint of a romance between the inspecting detective and cheating wife for instance.  

My lasting impression of THE FINAL FEAR isn't a good one. The story was bland, the characters paper-lite, the overarching narrative unbelievable (a detective, on a mere suggestion of impending violence happily outfits Roe in a cop uniform and transports him to a mental hospital to evade the cheated husband). 

The good thing is it won't take long to read and does have a nice pulp cover. 
  
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The original 1967 cover to the other Janifer pulp YOU CAN'T ESCAPE