Runaway Plot Hits Literary Wall; No Survivors: Christopher Whitcomb's Black
Amazon says:
Banes & Noble thinks:
|
Author: Christopher Whitcomb
Title: Black Genre: thriller Senator, sniper, industrialist, spy: they were four people, seemingly unconnected, and yet linked by a bond unknown. Jeremy Waller is the newest member of the FBI's crack hostage rescue team, trained as a sniper in a course of study as grueling as making the Navy Seals or the Army Rangers' Delta Force. The young father of three is certain he's reached the pinnacle of his chosen profession - at least he did until he started having second thoughts. The gorgeous - and equally intelligent - Sirad Malneaux isn't just on the fast track in her career, the comely young up-and-coming management trainee is driving the locomotive. Tapped to head up a complex and highly secretive project for her employer, Malneaux's loyalties in truth lie elsewhere - but for whom is this woman an industrial spy? Senator Elizabeth Beechum has garnered respect from both sides of the aisle, enough so that she was chosen by the opposition party to chair the Senate Intelligence Committee. But that respect - and quite probably her entire life's work - begins to crumble when she's expertly framed for murder. The fourth member of their little non-group, Jordan Mitchell, is said to be the second-richest man in America - and doing everything in his power to become the richest. The tale spun out in Black is a tale of black operations: Waller makes a deadly, off-the-books sortie into a certain Middle Eastern country...a highly efficient and adaptable frame unfolds around Beechum's neck when she gets too close to the truth... Malneaux arranges sex-laden liaisons with a highly-placed money man in Mitchell's company to seduce him into complacency... Nothing and no one is what it should be, or at least seem to be. And yet the four are, somehow, connected - and when they all come together, the resulting reaction is as explosive as a truckload of C4. Or so you'd hope. In reality, the four tales are - except for a few common characters - essentially independent of one another, and the reaction that occurs when they arrive in the same room simultaneously is more of a fizzle than an explosion. In his second book and his first work of fiction, one-time FBI agent Chris Whitcomb proves himself less adept with pen than with sword. His first book - Cold Zero - was a memoir of Whitcomb's fifteen years at the Bureau, of which six years on the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team included participation as a sniper at Ruby Ridge and Waco. When he's writing what he knows - the quarter of the book about Waller and the HRT - Whitcomb stands on familiar ground, capable of creating credible fiction (although a far more engaging description of the life of a sniper can be found in Dan Simmons's Darwin's Blade). Whitcomb attempts to stitch together elements of crime novels (the frame-up of Beechum), a slew of spy thrillers (Malneaux trading her beauteous body [I just know Whitcomb envisions Halle Berry for the movie role] for secrets, a wee bit of torture), and conspiracy fiction (actual black helicopters; no lie!) into a single novel. He also manages to dip into science fiction with a fanciful untraceable weapon, created by the stereotypical halitosis- and body odor-ridden scientific genius. Whitcomb fails, however, to conclude any of the book's four plot threads, much less tie them together into a credible ending. As the story screams to its dénouement, a series of deus ex machina coincidences places all the players - plus their seen and unseen puppeteers - in the same room at the same time. And all those knotty questions are answered in one fell swoop! Or not: the plot remains as full of holes as a good emmenthaler, and the "wrap-up" generates more questions than answers. A stodgy, clumsy writing style and more hackneyed plot threads than a trunk full of Ludlum-wannabe manuscripts conspire to ruin Whitcomb's fiction debut, as poor pacing and logical inconsistencies fritter away a plot with potential. That's not to mention a heart-pounding pace that comes to such a screeching halt that Black should have been sold equipped with airbags... all content copyright © 2001-present by scmrak
|