It's Flat. It's Unconvincing. It's Killer Weekend
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Author: Ridley Pearson
Title: Killer Weekend Genre: mystery Mystery writer Ridley Pearson (The Art of Deception, Cut and Run) may have won the Raymond Chandler-Fullbright Fellowship in detective fiction to Britain’s Oxford University, but it’s a sure bet the Fullbright Commission would have sent the award elsewhere had he submitted Killer Weekend as his entrance examination. With plot dynamics carved out of a host of grade B movies and characters seemingly constructed of the finest corrugated cardboard, Pearson’s latest is a perfect example of a respected writer resting on his laurels, and should be skipped on general principles. Walt Fleming’s rise to Sheriff of Blaine County, Idaho, was nothing short of meteoric – probably because in his first year on the job as a bicycle patrolman he’d foiled a home invasion and the attempted murder of part-time Sun Valley resident Liz Shaler. Eight years later, Fleming’s the elected head of law enforcement in and around the ski community, and Shaler (Attorney General of New York when not in Idaho) is short-listed for a run for the White House. As politicians are wont to do, she’s come to where the money is to announce her candidacy – and this year, the money’s right in Fleming’s back yard. The über-rich will be thicker than flies at a confab hosted by another part-time Valley resident, Patrick Cutter, and Shaler’s scheduled to make a little announcement on the final day. Problem being, someone seems to want Shaler dead – enough so to hire a pro to do the deed. You’d think that with a slew of security types – Secret Service, Fleming’s department, Ketchum PD, and a boatload of private agencies protecting various billionaires – roaming the grounds of the conference, Shaler’d be safer than a ham sandwich in a synagogue. You’d think, wouldn’t you? but you’d be wrong. Between lack of competence and all-too-stereotypical inter-agency pissing contests, Shaler’s probably a dead duck. Can Fleming pull that eight-year-old rabbit out of his bigger hat this time? Stay tuned… It’s hard to say where Ridley Pearson went wrong in Killer Weekend. It might be in the large number of throwaway characters he uses in all those security agencies, so many that readers lose track of who is whom. It might be the complete stupidity of thinking that the Secret Service, assigned to watch a potential presidential candidate, would let some rent-a-cop dictate security arrangements for the conference. It might be the distracting side plot of a murder unrelated to the main plot. It might be Pearson’s failure to research guide dogs – especially his ridiculous plot device that an airline would force a blind passenger to check his guide dog as baggage. It might be his revelation that Fleming’s wife is a lousy mother and then his failure to mention the child (or is it children) again in the book. It might be the hoary old “Die Hard” plot thread where some guy can take a bullet and keep on functioning as if he were immune to lead poisoning. It might be all of those things – in fact, it probably is. Pearson’s latest fails because readers can’t warm up to his characters despite the warm, fuzzy details he provides for their back stories. It fails because readers can only suspend their disbelief so far and then incredulity takes over. It fails because it’s riddled with clichés like the small-town cop who is actually a highly regarded graduate of the FBI academy, the childhood scarred by a brutal father, or the filthy rich women who are more plastic than flesh. It also fails because Pearson never passes up a chance to shock the reader. Killer Weekend might have actually been a good read were it not for sloppy research (the whole guide dog thing), a plethora of indistinguishable characters, and too many distracting external issues. Pearson is to be commended, however, for not yielding to the stereotypical device of tossing the main characters into bed together and for resisting the urge to tie all of the local murders together with a single big bow; however, those positives are clearly outweighed by the negatives. Give it a pass. all content copyright © 2014 by scmrak
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