Taylor Stevens, The Informationist -- There's TLI (Too Little Information)
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Author: Taylor Stevens
Title: The Informationist Genre: thriller Eighteen-year-old Emily Burbank disappeared into darkest Africa four years ago and not a trace of her has been seen since. In a last-ditch effort, oil billionaire Richard Burbank offers a $5-million finder’s fee to Vanessa Michael Munroe if she can find the missing girl. Few people in the world are better-equipped for the job: Munroe is The Informationist, a title that combines fixer, spy, mercenary, assassin and a dozen other functions into one. The blonde polyglot is tall and androgynous enough that she can pass for a wispy “Michael” or transform into the lithe beauty of Vanessa – and more to the point, she knows the territory, having spent her teen years in Cameroon and other corners of Middle Africa. Returning to her roots after more than a decade does strange things to Munroe’s head, but not strange enough to interfere with her mission: there’s plenty of that already, given Burbank’s insistence that his own mercenary come along. Munroe also reunites with an old friend (several times, if you get my drift); is almost murdered a couple of times; and in general plows a wide furrow through several African nations. The problem, of course (this being the age of “reality” television) is that someone doesn’t want her to succeed, and that revelation will have to wait as you page through clichéd action after clichéd character. The first in the Vanessa Michael Munroe series penned by Texan Taylor Stevens (who claims to have her own pretty fascinating back story), The Informationist took thriller fans by storm when it was released in 2011. Two more Munroe books have been published since, and a fourth is in the works. It sort of surprises me that this book received critical acclaim. It’s probably because of the gender reversal inherent in the Munroe saga, which features a gorgeous woman (well, sometimes) who alternates between being barely able to keep her sexual appetites under control and being barely able to stop herself from killing anyone in her path. Other than the genderbending characterizations, not much is new. Oh, the setting in Africa is undeniably exotic, and the protagonist’s globetrotting lifestyle sounds interesting, though Munroe’s absolute lack of any sort of home base rings as hollow as an empty oil drum. Then again, what can you expect from writing along these lines: “But the challenge was seductive, and its alluring tendrils wrapped themselves around her mind like the ethereal threads of a spider’s web.” Yuck. Moderately interesting character and unusual setting aside, where The Informationist goes off the rails is in the execution. You can dress up the evil billionaire plot all you want, but it’s still a hoary old trope that’s been done to death; not to mention that the whole traitorous insider thing has also been worn almost featureless by use. Worst of all, however, is that the title is a startling example of the old bait and switch. Munroe is supposed to be “an informationist” (whatever that may be) but this entire novel is about action. Some of the action’s in the bedroom and some’s on the battlefield, but except for a few glimmers of synthesis early on, Munroe basically turns out to be a killing machine instead of a thinking machine – in fact, other people seem to do most of her strategy and synthesis for her. Frankly, that’s not what I signed on for. One would hope that the author can find a voice for Munroe in later books that is less about violence and more about solving puzzles – there are plenty of sociopaths out there already. all content copyright © 2001-present by scmrak
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