Author: J. A. Konrath Title: The List Genre: thriller
Homicide detective Tom Mankowski, of Chicago’s finest, caught the case of the mutilated librarian. Except perhaps for excessive violence, it was just one more murder case in the Second City– one more, that is, until someone noticed the blue numeral 7 tattooed on the bottom of the dead man’s heel. That caught Mankowski’s attention – mainly because he had one just like it on his own foot: number 5. A quick check showed that the detective and the dead man, Thomas Jessup, shared more than first names and tattoos: they had been born only days apart in the same hospital and placed with adoptive parents under odd circumstances.
With a 5 and a 7 in play, Mankowski figured there must be at least five more – and he soon found number 2, a Tennessee cop tortured to death the year before. Not being a fool, once the little man with bad teeth tried to decapitate him with a “samurai sword,” Mankowski figured out that his tattoo probably meant he was marked for death – as was anyone else with one of those number tattoos. Who else was on The List? And why?
The why was simple: power, money and the filthy rich politician who dreamt only of having both. Thirty years ago, he cloned… well, let’s just say he funded a mad scientist who cloned ten famous people, some of them not particularly nice – and Tom Mankowski was one of his results: a clone of Thomas Jefferson. The murder victim, Tom Jessup, had been a clone of Edison; the murdered Tennessee cop a copy of Robert E. Lee – and there were seven more out there somewhere. Except that three of them had been tasked with disposing of the other seven – and had already gotten a start.
Mankowski and his partner buddy up with three of the remaining names on The List in a desperate bid to track down the evil money-man behind the plot and put him away. That assumes, of course, that the murderous clones don’t catch them first…
Though published in 2010, The List was actually written in 2000 by Jack Kilborn, writing under the name J. A. Konrath (or maybe it was J. A. Konrath, who writes under the name Jack Kilborn – I don't know and frankly, I don’t care). The author has since gone on to moderate success with the “Jack Daniels” police procedural series, all of which have names a bartender would easily recognize.
But we’re not here to talk about Jack Daniels (or Jim Beam, for that matter), we’re here to talk about The List, which is – to be charitable – a mediocre thriller. Part of it may be that Konrath didn’t bother to update the “techno” in his “technothriller” to the 21st century. That’s why Mankowski was impressed by “an IBM complete with modem,” or why he “didn’t know one single person who didn’t have an answering machine.” I guess one can overlook that, especially when he was basically giving the novel away for free at the time (though it should have been updated when published on dead trees in 2010).
What’s hard to get past is that The List is built on an interesting premise – a mad scientist who, in 1970, figured out how to clone humans (long before Dolly was a gleam in her veterinarian’s eye). However, the rest of the story really doesn’t make much sense. Perhaps the scientist’s madness is why he chose to clone not only Jefferson, Lee and Edison; as well as Einstein and Lincoln – but decided to reach deep into the depths of history for Shakespeare, Joan of Arc, Vlad the Impaler, and Attila the Hun. Duh.
Besides the lack of reasoning behind certain character choices – let’s face it: Konrath needed a hot warrior chick, and couldn’t think of any heroines from the 20th century (since Amelia Earhart’s body was never found) – that has to be the only reason for Joan of Arc. I mean, really? And the science – what little there is of it – is totally baseless. The dead Edison clone did most of Mankowski’s legwork for him, dumping all the critical clues with the Einstein clone. And the idea that a person’s handwriting is genetically pre-ordained? Preposterous!
Perhaps one reason I wasn't impressed is that the central premise is pretty derivative of Tracy Kidder's Joshua, Son of None and the villain's motive has popped up about ten times in the works of Robert Ludlum (Robert Ludlum, you know). Or perhaps I just didn't like it...
In the end, a pretty good premise that founders under the weight of sloppy plotting and stereotypical thrill-a-minute pot-boiling, with poorly-defined characters and leaden dialog piled on for good measure. Acceptable as a two-dollar download, but not at the price of a paperback, much less a hardback.