Kill Switch: Proof that Television Writers Can't Write Good Novels
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Author: Neal Baer and Jonathan Greene
Title: Kill Switch Genre: thriller Funny thing about this book from the writing team of Neal Baer and Jonathan Greene: this is the second time I've read Kill Switch in its short lifespan, and it wasn't until I was fifty or so pages into it the second time around that I recognized it. In short, Kill Switch is eminently forgettable… On the first day of her new fellowship in forensic psychiatry, Claire Waters bumbles upon the case of a lifetime; weenie-wagger turned violent Todd Quimby. Convinced (after her first encounter) that Quimby is a serial killer who likes slutty blondes, Waters bleaches her raven hair and dons a skin-tight, cleavage-baring black leather outfit for her next appointment. Yeah, she's quite the scientist. As luck would have it, Quimby ends up fingered for a series of murders of slutty blondes, and Waters helps NYPD homicide dick Nick Lawler put him away, though not before he manages to gut Water's live-in lover like a trout and murder a cop. Actually, Quimby drowns on page 128: I guess that's a dead giveaway that he's a red herring, though Lawler and Waters apparently don't notice the page number. Oh, sorry: I should've said "spoiler alert," shouldn't I! Anyway, that gives Waters and Lawler time to wander off to her home town of Rochester where, in short order, the pair solve a 20-year-old child abduction case followed by sussing out the real truth about the killer and, after the obligatory moment of truth, putting him away. That's not, however, before Water's fellowship adviser (from back in the first chapter) falls victim to the deep dark secret about why the real killer suddenly became murderous. Welcome to the realm of the Coincidence Fairy! The writing team of Neal Baer and Jonathan Greene is best known for their work on the SVU franchise of television's "Law and Order" where they regularly put Olivia through her paces. Their television series background is obvious in the novel, for the two continue to write as though the reader will get out of his chair every eight minutes to get another beer or hit the head. Other obvious television-style writing tropes include the excessively flat characters whose backstories are almost 100% cliché, the casual treatment of science, and the disturbing lack of primary motivation for the murderous thug. And, of course, the writers' SVU "roots" appear in the form of that gratuitous child abduction plot thread. The main characters are both terminally flawed in an apparent attempt to make them more "human," a common television technique in comedies, dramas, and "reality" shows alike. Waters is haunted by the long-ago death of her friend Amy, while Lawler is not only a young widower grieving over the suicide of his wife (for which he was originally charged with her murder), he's also going blind from retinitis pigmentosa (though concealing it from his bosses: a blind man with a gun -- sounds like Idaho!) Baer and Greene are nothing if not brutal in their treatment of their characters; flat as they may be. Given its cliché-ridden plot filled with characters we've all seen a hundred or more times before, it's small wonder that I couldn't remember having read Kill Switch the first time: I'm pretty certain I didn't bother to finish it. all content copyright © 2014 by scmrak
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