Käärmeitä paratiisissa

Ben Kane #1

by Nick Stone

Karibia oli Ben Kanen mielestä trooppinen paratiisi, jossa hän voisi unohtaa kokemuksensa Vietnamin sodassa. Mutta kaikki ei ollutkaan kohdallaan tämän trooppisen saaren hohtavan valkoisilla, aurinkoisilla rannoilla.
Loistokkailla huvipursilla ja nopeissa kilpaveneissä majaili joukko epätoivoisia yksilöitä, jotka muuttaisivat nämä rauhalliset rannat.... maanpäälliseksi helvetiksi.

199 pages, Paperback

First published January 12, 1987

Reviews

[Hidekisohma · Rating 3 out of 5]

So a bit of a backstory on this book.

When i was around 14 i found this for $1 in the clearance section of barnes and noble. I read it, and for my 14 year old self, i remember it being very adult and scandalous. I forgot about the book for years and years until i finally remembered it a few months ago. I decided to find a copy and re-read it. and here we are.

The book is very much a male fantasy book. it's about a Vietnam vet (who has flashbacks because of course he does) and now runs a boat charter company. He gets kidnapped multiple times, has sex multiple times, talks to people about stuff multiple times, and shoots people multiple times. There, that's basically the whole book.

The problem is, the main character Ben Kane is extremely unlikable. He basically has 2 parts to his personality. horny and sarcastic. that's really about it. There's no subtlety, no nuance, whenever he's with a female character, he's horny, whenever he's with a male character, he's sarcastic.

There's literally only 3 reasons he survives all the scrapes he gets into.
1. he gets knocked unconscious 3 times in the book, and every time, they tie him up or capture him instead of killing him.
2. TWICE when he was captured, they didn't take his gun for some reason (he said it was because 'they must have patted my pocket and felt the handkerchief and didn't feel the gun' get the hell out of here)
3. the villains are oddly gracious and/or stupid. like there wasn't a single time the villains wanted to kill him when capturing him. they always offer him a deal. Seriously, the first time they take all his money, but then they leave him with $3000 and call the ambulance for him before they leave. I gotta say, pretty gracious bad guys.

it's one of those books where the main character is supposed to be this bad ass lady's man, but there's no reason he should be. he's got no personality, he's useless without his plot armor, and he's a cheater. he technically has a girlfriend in a woman named michelle, but cheats on her 3 times in the book. (Hey, nick stone, pssst. if you're going to have a lady's man main character, don't give him a serious love interest). Ben Kane said that he "Felt slightly guilty" but then cheated on her 2 more times, so i mean, he couldn't have felt THAT bad.

There's a scene in the book where he ruthlessly kills an old man, and his ex-boss weaver blackmails him into working for him with that knowledge and Ben's like "it was self defense!" i'm like "bro. yeah he was evil, but he was an old shakey man in a wheelchair who was crying. that's...that's not self defense. sorry dude."

Ben does a lot of sitting and listening to people, or being creepy staring at women's bodies. he does a LITTLE bit of shooting/action, but really not that much. out of 250 pages maybe..... 20 of it is him doing action stuff?

All in all, this book is just a popcorn 80's male fantasy novel. I will say it read very easily and i wasn't confused by the writing style at all. If i come across the sequel i'll probably read it, but it will be a while before i do so. No way can i jump into another Ben Kane story that quick. 2.5 out of 5 rounded up to a 3.

[David B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ben Kane peacefully runs a successful charter boat business in the Virgin Islands until his past catches up with him. That past includes a stint as a riverboat captain in Vietnam, followed by a stretch as a CIA operative. In his last mission, Kane tricked his handler, Cord Weaver, into thinking that a million dollars was lost at sea along with a boatload of dead drug dealers. Actually, it became seed money for his business. Eight years later, more shady characters show up to torture him into revealing the location of his stash, and Weaver returns to pressure him into helping the Company deal with the influx of communists and drug runners into the islands. The resulting adventure is pretty well-written but not terribly memorable. One thing I appreciated about Kane was that, despite being the usual studly he-man, he is also a bit of a klutz, getting knocked out, shot, and beat up numerous times. Plenty of sex and decent dialogue.

https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com

[Jean-Marc Rocher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the English edition, Kane’s War (which doesn’t show up on Goodreads). Stone has a tendency to both show and tell, but the writing is fairly fast-paced.
It’s more action than thriller, as most of the challenges Kane faces are solved by the next chapter with far more firepower than ingenuity. Still, it was an enjoyable read.

[Brian Feist · Rating 3 out of 5]

It wasn’t bad. If you like 80’s style movies, you’ll like this.

[Timo]

Itseasiassa, tämä ei ollut yhtään paskempi. Vauhtia, vaarallisia tilanteita, hölmöjä käänteitä, väkivaltaa ja sexiä. Toimi.