Sorry, No Clear Winner with Baldacci
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Author: David Baldacci
Title:The Winner Genre: thriller Look, I TRY to like David Baldacci's novels. This is the second that I've read (Total Control was the first) and you don't do that with authors whose prose turns your stomach. Or, at least you shouldn't. For some unknown reason, there have been a lot of lottery-winner novels and movies lately. There's a John Travolta comedy coming out later this week (October, 2000) and it's the third or so this year along that theme. Carl Hiaasen's Lucky You came out couple of years ago, and then there's David Baldacci's The Winner (published in 1997). Frankly, Hiaasen's entry in the sweepstakes is the clear winner if you compare it to Baldacci's novel. Oh, his plot's actually fairly good, even though few of the pieces are all that original. Let's see: we have the stock characters: Our heroine -- a drop-dead gorgeous woman with world-class athletic skills and a major secret; she hasn't had sex in ten years. Our hero -- a drop-dead gorgeous man with world-class athletic skills and a major secret; he hasn't had sex in five years. The villain -- an incredibly intelligent, athletic, charismatic, multi-talented character actor with a major secret (and a fatal flaw). And we have the usual plot: Hero rescues heroine from villain, they get away, villain catches them again, they get away, villain lures her into a trap, hero rescues her, hero kills villain, she rescues hero. Oh, and along the way, the hero and the heroine fall in love (as well as lust). Let's see -- given their personal beauty, their athleticism and intelligence, I'd suspect that their offspring will be the next generation of Greek gods. OK, it's not all bad. Baldacci has introduced some plot twists (sororicide, the man of a thousand and one faces, lottery-fixing, etc.) that will keep you reading, especially if you don't have another book at hand. My problem is that the book's not as well crafted as I would have liked. The characters are not that different from the characters in a Ludlum novel (beautiful people who have the strength of ten and the intelligence of a dozen). But while Baldacci is wowing you with his characters' beauty, he lets the plot details slide -- his explanation of the method of fixing the lottery comes very late (on page 407), and it's badly designed and poorly researched. The mathematics of the odds he quotes are also incorrect. Worst of all to me, though, is Baldacci's need for a strong and assertive editor. Many times his prose could clearly use a rewrite to escape an unnatural stodginess and turgidity. This tendency is especially noticeable in his scene descriptions, but it's annoyingly prevalent in his dialogue as well. Both simply lack the crisp natural quality that could raise his novels above the rabble all content copyright © 2001-present by scmrak
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