In The 500 Matthew Quirk Demonstrates how not to Write a Thriller
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Author: Matthew Quirk Title: The 500 Genre: thriller
Despite – or is it because of? – a checkered past, Harvard Law student Mike Ford makes a sparkling impression on the world-famous visiting professor from D.C. He makes such a good impression that upon graduating, Ford finds himself working for that prof’s firm in the District. Not as a lawyer, though, and not as a lobbyist – as an “influencer.”
Archimedes said that with the right lever and a place to stand, he could move the world. Ford’s job at the Davies Group is to find the lever that would cause change – not necessarily for the good, not necessarily for the bad, just “right” for the client who’s paying Davies. Given his checkered past – he’s a second-generation grifter with a juvie record – Ford quickly proves precisely the right man for the job. Besides a salary that means a hot ride and a cool crib (where he spends very little time), Ford also manages to hook up with the finest associate on the Davies staff, the one and only Annie. Oh, and Davies pulls strings to get his old man out of stir…
All that’s before the “Subject 23” flap, though. Once Ford blunders his way into that case, he finds himself in one helluva mess; caught between a rock and a hard place. In this case, the rock is his boss; who’s proven conclusively that every man or woman in Washington has his price (and James Davies can pay it); and the hard place is a crazed Serbian war criminal who’s dedicated his life to the chance to eat Ford’s heart – ick.
The U. S. Capitol [svobodat / wikimedia commons]
According to Matthew Quirk, the Davies Group is to K Street lobbyists what the Pittsburgh Pirates are to your kid’s tee-ball team, with one important difference: Davies owns almost every last one of The 500 most powerful people in DC. The one may they apparently can't buy is Subject 23 – and therein lies Mike Ford’s potential downfall.
It’s also Quirk’s downfall. Starting with that hoariest of hoary old trope – the secretive billionaire who pulls covert strings to manage pretty much our entire government – Quirk procedes to concoct a plot that’s about 50% endless ennui and 50% pedal-to-the-metal stereotype-stuffed thriller. Half the book is as tense as a Miss Marple tea cosy, while the other half comports itself like San Diego’s 2012 July 4th fireworks show (the twenty-minute show that launched every last rocket in fifteen seconds). Pacing, my friends, is not this author's strong point.
Oh, sure, all those people who revel in a “the house gave a lurch as the termites finished the east wing” style of writing just love The 500 (you can see them gush platitudes and regurgitate blurbs at the river), but one suspects that even they would notice the dangling plot threads (e.g., Ford’s military service, mentioned once and never again) or the flat-as-cardboard characters. Most glaring of all is Quirk's utter failure to provide Ford an iota of motivation for meddling in the case that places him in hot water.
Combine all that with visits from deus ex machina right up there with Frodo’s rescue by the eagles, and you have yourself a novel marred by lousy pacing, uninteresting characters, and a plot driven by some mysterious obsession that lacks the slightest basis in reason. Whether or not you loved Grisham’s The Firm, to which it’s often compared by publicists, chances are good you’ll find The 500 lacking