Everybody lies

posted on Sunday, May, 18th, 2008 in reading matter

“A masterpiece” — Stephen King

I don’t know how it is with you, but I am often peeved by overly enthusiastic reviewers’ praises for a book printed on the cover (or even on the first couple of pages inside). Mostly, the books with the most over-hyped praises turn out to be the dullest tomes imaginable. So, normally, I tend to ignore this.

If, on the other hand, somebody like Stephen King endorses a novel, I do pay attention. Not only because I like his own books, but because I have come to trust his opinion on such matters. I have yet to be disappointed in any of the books that I have come across that had an endorsement by Stephen on the cover. So, if he calls this one ‘brilliantly written and scary as hell’ how can I not pick it up? (And just to spare you the suspense: I think he was damn right with this description.)

But, you see, the thing is, even though I usually rarely tend to read thrillers I wouldn’t even have needed Steve’s encouragement in this case, because the author is none other than Michael Marshall Smith. Ever since finding him through Bookcrossing I have been a fan of his dark and twisted imagination. The books he writes under the name of Michael Marshall are less science fiction and more the thriller kind, but if this one is anything to go by, they are just as fantastic.

The story starts with two guys gunning down 68 people in a fast-food restaurant in Pennsylvania. We have a teenage girl that gets abducted from a busy street in the middle of L.A. And then there is Ward Hopkins, who tries to make sense of the accident that apparently killed his parents in Montana – then finds a note in his father’s favorite chair, reading: “We’re not dead.”

At first, it is a bit puzzling to figure out what all these events are supposed to have in common, but as the story unfolds it becomes ever clearer. Behind everything there are The Straw Men. Nobody knows who they are, and why they kill. But Ward, with the help of some friends, is doing his best to find out.

That probably doesn’t sound all that scary or captivating on first glance, but I can assure you that impression is deceiving. As I said, as a rule I am not much of a fan of thrillers, so I don’t have all that much experience with the genre, but as far as gripping stories go this one is definitely among the best I have read lately (and I don’t just say that because I have already loved the author before!).

You know, there is another pet peeve of mine concerning book reviews. It is the overuse of certain words that get bandied around just because the reviewers are too lazy to think of an original description. One of these words is “unputdownable” – actually, I’m not even sure if that is a proper english word, but nevertheless you find it in every second book review. As somebody who reads a lot of books I have come across many stories that I love and that I can’t wait to finish eventually, but a really unputdownable book in the literal sense of the word is a very rare thing for me.

This novel, though, does qualifiy for that description in my opinion. I literally was glued to my armchair and refused to even acknowledge anybody talking to me until I had finished it.

Incidentally, Marshall wrote a sequel, named “The Upright Man”, a title that makes sense if you read the first one. At my next shopping spreee on Amazon, this one will be on the top of the list of books to get.