Monday, May 22, 2006

DYNAMITE ROAD by Andrew Klavan

In this first in a new P.I. series recounting the cases of Weiss Investigations, headlined by ex-cop Scott Weiss and ex-con Jim Bishop, the agency is hired to investigate corruption at a small nothern California airport. Weiss is the world-weary thinker; Bishop is the brash young man-of-action.

I can't expound much further without giving away plot details and suspense that the novel gives away all too soon on its own—thanks largely to my old nemesis, multiple-viewpoint thriller structure. Instead of characterizing Weiss and Bishop in traditional third-person, the novel is actually told from the first-person POV of an unnamed rookie op. While the goal was probably to cast a romantic, larger-than-life light on Weiss and Bishop, the third perspective actually killed most of the suspense by revealing what each party was doing when.

It was just a matter of time (and pages) before the parties intercepted each other with fairly predictable results. The chapters were short—seventy-one in a 303-page book—but even so, reading was a chore.

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