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Con Maknazpy #2
Black Boat Dancing
Foreword by Jay A Gertzman
Writers from Chandler and Hammett through Willeford, Elroy, and Bret Easton Ellis have shown how the administration of cities is not corrupt, not a distortion of a moral norm, but inherently predatory. The depredation makes individuals themselves paranoiac and desperate. The 20th century industrial city has been replaced as the subject of political thrillers by corporate forces and international monetary policies to which nations, their spy agencies, military bureaucracies, and fossil fuel oligarchies are subservient. Jean-Patrick Manchette (The Prone Gunman), Don DeLillo (Point Omega), John Le Carré (The Constant Gardener) and Richard Godwin (Confessions of a Hit Man) write about these forces and the various forms of isolation and anxiety people suffer due to their influence.
They are transgressive for the same reason writers about the urban streets of no return were. There is no return to order at the end of these stories, for there is no moral consensus possible. There cannot be any return to innocence, for it did not exist in the first place. Beyond the glitter of upscale consumerism, the billions of dollars lost and found in the fog of war, the complex struggles for advantage between American, Chinese, Russian, and Eurozone operatives, the texture of life is sinister.
It is especially so in Gerard Cappa’s Black Boat Dancing and Blood from a Shadow. Like both groups of writers just mentioned, Cappa produces noir pictures of people, their motivations, their fates in the grip of a vast machine. The results are expressions of a world turned upside down, a movement from nation and its people to an international golden hand, invisible and lethal, every bit as harrowing as that of the enemies of spirituality the prophets of the messianic religions once spoke of. Cappa is very good at setting forth the intricate games the agents of the American, Chinese, and Russian militant states play with each other, and the ordinary people who pay for their weird symbiosis.
In Confessions of a Hit Man, the “top of the tree” as the hit man, the Royal Marine-trained Jack, put it, is blistered: the national and multinational networks, the CIAs and MI5s, the Irguns, and the KGBs. This kind of organization, its deceptions and the money it siphons off from the people, is delineated in all its power. So is Jack, who acquired a double who seems to absorb him. Watch for that as a problem Cappa’s Con Maknazpy has to solve, or begin to.
The Constant Gardener shows how the international pharmaceutical industry uses people living in poverty, countries which benefit from its profits, and sociopathic hit men to deliver its products. The Prone Gunman is about an agent serving his country by killing opponents of its own supra-national brand of international terrorism. It ends with his “writing” his memoir (actually, his employers write it for him). That becomes his identity. Assuming, in his sleep, the prone position, he is himself become a kind of drone. If Con read this “memoir”, or Manchette’s yarn, he would probably go mad in recognition, if that is possible.
That might also happen if he read Point Omega. Even terrorism (drones, suicide bombers, mall shootings, shock and awe) takes a back seat to the kind of torture which the victim is made to inflict on himself. Point Omega is about a moment when humanity reaches a will, not to evolve, but to regress into the pure death instinct that drives modern weapons and surveillance systems as well as psychological immersion in cant (“terrorism”, “counter-insurgency”, “extremism”). Delillo’s Richard Elster is an earlier version, like Burroughs’ Dr Benway, of Cappa’s 21st century mad scientist Dr Blake.
The ultimate 21st century heroism is to struggle for the control of one’s own destiny. Con Maknazpy’s struggle is an example. He is not destroyed but potentially redeemed by his own sin and suffering. With some kind of inner, spiritual voice inside his head, he forces his humanity to come to life. He is a kind of Hercules, who back in Shakespeare’s time (as Coriolanus) was admired as a ubermensch-like natural force: proud, without any desire other than to survive honorably without compromise. Con is modeled on the Irish hero Cú Chulainn, a kind of Golem when he cannot know friend from foe in his battle-frenzy. Con is intensely human, however, and on a search for his father. The conversation when he finds him is a kind of denouement.
Cappa’s originality, in comparison to the masters of the political noir, is his adopting the conventions of the classic pulp crime novels of the 1940s and 50s. One of those is the use of violence as a defining characteristic of noir. The first chapter describes a man Cora has blown into “mist”; on the last page a still-bleeding corpse has a welcoming post card attached with a knife between its shoulder blades. In between, Con makes enemies bleed on two continents. Maknazpy is a skilled warrior, which is why h...
Writers from Chandler and Hammett through Willeford, Elroy, and Bret Easton Ellis have shown how the administration of cities is not corrupt, not a distortion of a moral norm, but inherently predatory. The depredation makes individuals themselves paranoiac and desperate. The 20th century industrial city has been replaced as the subject of political thrillers by corporate forces and international monetary policies to which nations, their spy agencies, military bureaucracies, and fossil fuel oligarchies are subservient. Jean-Patrick Manchette (The Prone Gunman), Don DeLillo (Point Omega), John Le Carré (The Constant Gardener) and Richard Godwin (Confessions of a Hit Man) write about these forces and the various forms of isolation and anxiety people suffer due to their influence.
They are transgressive for the same reason writers about the urban streets of no return were. There is no return to order at the end of these stories, for there is no moral consensus possible. There cannot be any return to innocence, for it did not exist in the first place. Beyond the glitter of upscale consumerism, the billions of dollars lost and found in the fog of war, the complex struggles for advantage between American, Chinese, Russian, and Eurozone operatives, the texture of life is sinister.
It is especially so in Gerard Cappa’s Black Boat Dancing and Blood from a Shadow. Like both groups of writers just mentioned, Cappa produces noir pictures of people, their motivations, their fates in the grip of a vast machine. The results are expressions of a world turned upside down, a movement from nation and its people to an international golden hand, invisible and lethal, every bit as harrowing as that of the enemies of spirituality the prophets of the messianic religions once spoke of. Cappa is very good at setting forth the intricate games the agents of the American, Chinese, and Russian militant states play with each other, and the ordinary people who pay for their weird symbiosis.
In Confessions of a Hit Man, the “top of the tree” as the hit man, the Royal Marine-trained Jack, put it, is blistered: the national and multinational networks, the CIAs and MI5s, the Irguns, and the KGBs. This kind of organization, its deceptions and the money it siphons off from the people, is delineated in all its power. So is Jack, who acquired a double who seems to absorb him. Watch for that as a problem Cappa’s Con Maknazpy has to solve, or begin to.
The Constant Gardener shows how the international pharmaceutical industry uses people living in poverty, countries which benefit from its profits, and sociopathic hit men to deliver its products. The Prone Gunman is about an agent serving his country by killing opponents of its own supra-national brand of international terrorism. It ends with his “writing” his memoir (actually, his employers write it for him). That becomes his identity. Assuming, in his sleep, the prone position, he is himself become a kind of drone. If Con read this “memoir”, or Manchette’s yarn, he would probably go mad in recognition, if that is possible.
That might also happen if he read Point Omega. Even terrorism (drones, suicide bombers, mall shootings, shock and awe) takes a back seat to the kind of torture which the victim is made to inflict on himself. Point Omega is about a moment when humanity reaches a will, not to evolve, but to regress into the pure death instinct that drives modern weapons and surveillance systems as well as psychological immersion in cant (“terrorism”, “counter-insurgency”, “extremism”). Delillo’s Richard Elster is an earlier version, like Burroughs’ Dr Benway, of Cappa’s 21st century mad scientist Dr Blake.
The ultimate 21st century heroism is to struggle for the control of one’s own destiny. Con Maknazpy’s struggle is an example. He is not destroyed but potentially redeemed by his own sin and suffering. With some kind of inner, spiritual voice inside his head, he forces his humanity to come to life. He is a kind of Hercules, who back in Shakespeare’s time (as Coriolanus) was admired as a ubermensch-like natural force: proud, without any desire other than to survive honorably without compromise. Con is modeled on the Irish hero Cú Chulainn, a kind of Golem when he cannot know friend from foe in his battle-frenzy. Con is intensely human, however, and on a search for his father. The conversation when he finds him is a kind of denouement.
Cappa’s originality, in comparison to the masters of the political noir, is his adopting the conventions of the classic pulp crime novels of the 1940s and 50s. One of those is the use of violence as a defining characteristic of noir. The first chapter describes a man Cora has blown into “mist”; on the last page a still-bleeding corpse has a welcoming post card attached with a knife between its shoulder blades. In between, Con makes enemies bleed on two continents. Maknazpy is a skilled warrior, which is why h...
403 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 12, 2014
2 people are currently reading
329 people want to read
About the author
Gerard Cappa
5 books54 followersChan amháin saor ach Gaelach.
The Irish proverb says “Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine” – we live in each others shadows. This is an observation that we depend on each other, and should therefore be benevolent and supportive of other people.
It could also mean that none of us are the autonomous individualists as idealized by modern western culture – the free thinking independent, responsible only to our individual conscience which we have each created in isolation.
I was born in the north of Ireland in 1959, and was therefore 10 years old when the Troubles restarted in 1969.
‘Blood from a Shadow’ is by no means a ‘Troubles’ book, nor is it an attempt by me to rationalize or give my version of who were the heroes and who the traitors. For one thing, I don’t feel entitled to bend my characters to suit that purpose. For another, I must confess to feeling an unease, even a slight antagonism, when I read some other books that handle the subject badly, or lazily: too many lives were damaged, too many survivors still hurt, to excuse the comic book narratives that exploit their suffering and do justice to no-one.
Like every other 10 year old, I learned to live a life we thought was normal, even if that normality was a heady fusion of the shadow cast by warrior-heroes, the baggage of competing cultural realities and our collective premonition that it would get worse before it would get better.
Anyway, forty something years later, and it is better. Not perfect, maybe a work in progress, but better, and good enough to permit me to delve into some of those notions of free will, predetermination and the influence of our hand me down attitudes.
Of course, it isn’t only the Irish who receive cultural certainties, and I hope ‘Blood from a Shadow’ creaks open the lid to shed a little doubt on the self-confirming shibboleths that turn slogans into war cries across the east/west divide.
The Irish proverb says “Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine” – we live in each others shadows. This is an observation that we depend on each other, and should therefore be benevolent and supportive of other people.
It could also mean that none of us are the autonomous individualists as idealized by modern western culture – the free thinking independent, responsible only to our individual conscience which we have each created in isolation.
I was born in the north of Ireland in 1959, and was therefore 10 years old when the Troubles restarted in 1969.
‘Blood from a Shadow’ is by no means a ‘Troubles’ book, nor is it an attempt by me to rationalize or give my version of who were the heroes and who the traitors. For one thing, I don’t feel entitled to bend my characters to suit that purpose. For another, I must confess to feeling an unease, even a slight antagonism, when I read some other books that handle the subject badly, or lazily: too many lives were damaged, too many survivors still hurt, to excuse the comic book narratives that exploit their suffering and do justice to no-one.
Like every other 10 year old, I learned to live a life we thought was normal, even if that normality was a heady fusion of the shadow cast by warrior-heroes, the baggage of competing cultural realities and our collective premonition that it would get worse before it would get better.
Anyway, forty something years later, and it is better. Not perfect, maybe a work in progress, but better, and good enough to permit me to delve into some of those notions of free will, predetermination and the influence of our hand me down attitudes.
Of course, it isn’t only the Irish who receive cultural certainties, and I hope ‘Blood from a Shadow’ creaks open the lid to shed a little doubt on the self-confirming shibboleths that turn slogans into war cries across the east/west divide.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 20, 2014
As with Blood From a Shadow (the first Con Maknazpy title), I found this book to be filled with in-depth research and well-written. The book is action-packed and quickly engages the reader. Readers who have read the first book receive a nice payoff in this second book by finding out more about Maknazpy's demons and backstory.
As with the first book in the series, the body count is high in Black Boat Dancing. Based on the characters and plotlines involved (international intrigue revolving around cyber- and organized crime), tough, the bodycount probably needs to be high.
The book portrays a rich variety of well-developed characters. My personal favorite was Cora (Maknazpy's psychologically abusive handler) and George (the nominal objective of Maknazpy's mission). The author includes in the story a detailed breakdown of international crime utilizing the internet and much insight into developing Sino-American global rivalry.
The narrative follows Maknazpy around the world, from Hell's Kitchen in New York City to Portugal, with numerous historical references drawn from around the world.
The reappearance of the main character's father, long presumed dead, made for some dramatic moments in the story. The interaction between estranged father and son also creates some doubt for Maknazpy's world view and gives the main character some serious cognitive dissonance.
I thought the book had a great ending. For readers who like thrillers with much action, politics, and crime, Black Boat Dancing should make for a worthwhile read.
As with the first book in the series, the body count is high in Black Boat Dancing. Based on the characters and plotlines involved (international intrigue revolving around cyber- and organized crime), tough, the bodycount probably needs to be high.
The book portrays a rich variety of well-developed characters. My personal favorite was Cora (Maknazpy's psychologically abusive handler) and George (the nominal objective of Maknazpy's mission). The author includes in the story a detailed breakdown of international crime utilizing the internet and much insight into developing Sino-American global rivalry.
The narrative follows Maknazpy around the world, from Hell's Kitchen in New York City to Portugal, with numerous historical references drawn from around the world.
The reappearance of the main character's father, long presumed dead, made for some dramatic moments in the story. The interaction between estranged father and son also creates some doubt for Maknazpy's world view and gives the main character some serious cognitive dissonance.
I thought the book had a great ending. For readers who like thrillers with much action, politics, and crime, Black Boat Dancing should make for a worthwhile read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 17, 2015
Black Boat Dancing is available as a Kindle book as of 12th May 2014. It will be available as a paperback, and on all the other usual digital platforms by the end of May.
I am not reviewing my own book here but if I don't write something I will be presented with the 'Want to Read' button every time I go to my home page.
I am not reviewing my own book here but if I don't write something I will be presented with the 'Want to Read' button every time I go to my home page.
July 2, 2014
Con Maknazpy is back in another fast-paced intricate thriller, Black Boat Dancing, by author Gerard Cappa. Having thoroughly enjoyed Cappa's first book featuring Con, I awaited the second with anticipation but some apprehension that he might not live up to the expectations raised by the first novel. Fear not! Black Boat Dancing picks up the Con Maknazpy story and charges full steam ahead into a maze of cross, double cross and triple cross by various assorted characters we meet along the way.
When this novel opens, Con and Ferdia are languishing in Boston doing odd jobs for Irish bar owner Jack Gallogly. Con's wife Rose has left him, taken his son Con and is living with Jack. Young Con is suffering from seizures or fits similar to the fits of rage that sometimes take possession of Con senior. A figure from the past, Cora, US government agent, reappears and refers Con to a shrink, a Dr. Blake. Con, with Ferdia's connivance, is persuaded to take on another assignment for Cora's agency, in return for which he is promised that Blake will provide medical and counselling services to his son.
Con and Ferdia's mission is to go to Lisbon and track down computer genius George Oliver who appears to have fled the coop with some inside info on US financial support of Middle East terrorists. Upon their arrival in Lisbon they are plunged into a maze of intricate machinations involving Oliver, the Russian mafia and some Chinese who are in Lisbon with a computer genius of their own, a young man named Zheng. Add to this mix a former Brazilian femme fatale, Yasmin, who is working in a nightclub and would dearly like to escape to America with her two children.
Shake this mix and you get a high-powered, pulse raising race through Lisbon from one close call to another. Along the way Oliver is killed. It becomes clear that the real targets are Zheng and Con. Zheng is accompanied by an older Chinese, Liu, supposedly a translator but in reality a Chinese army officer who intends to get the info implicating the Americans and take Zheng and Con back to China. There is a surprise arrival to assist in this task, a long lost figure from Con's childhood, long thought dead. A Russian gangster Yakov also enters the frey in a major way.
Who will emerge from the mayhem with the dirt on the Americans and the ability to siphon millions from banks around the world? Can they save Con's "bacon"?
Disclaimer: an ARC of this novel was provided to me by the author.
When this novel opens, Con and Ferdia are languishing in Boston doing odd jobs for Irish bar owner Jack Gallogly. Con's wife Rose has left him, taken his son Con and is living with Jack. Young Con is suffering from seizures or fits similar to the fits of rage that sometimes take possession of Con senior. A figure from the past, Cora, US government agent, reappears and refers Con to a shrink, a Dr. Blake. Con, with Ferdia's connivance, is persuaded to take on another assignment for Cora's agency, in return for which he is promised that Blake will provide medical and counselling services to his son.
Con and Ferdia's mission is to go to Lisbon and track down computer genius George Oliver who appears to have fled the coop with some inside info on US financial support of Middle East terrorists. Upon their arrival in Lisbon they are plunged into a maze of intricate machinations involving Oliver, the Russian mafia and some Chinese who are in Lisbon with a computer genius of their own, a young man named Zheng. Add to this mix a former Brazilian femme fatale, Yasmin, who is working in a nightclub and would dearly like to escape to America with her two children.
Shake this mix and you get a high-powered, pulse raising race through Lisbon from one close call to another. Along the way Oliver is killed. It becomes clear that the real targets are Zheng and Con. Zheng is accompanied by an older Chinese, Liu, supposedly a translator but in reality a Chinese army officer who intends to get the info implicating the Americans and take Zheng and Con back to China. There is a surprise arrival to assist in this task, a long lost figure from Con's childhood, long thought dead. A Russian gangster Yakov also enters the frey in a major way.
Who will emerge from the mayhem with the dirt on the Americans and the ability to siphon millions from banks around the world? Can they save Con's "bacon"?
Disclaimer: an ARC of this novel was provided to me by the author.
December 25, 2014
I read a lot of what might be called “noir thrillers,” and I ask myself where the critique of the 21st century “Chinatown” is going to come from. Writers from Chandler and Hammett through
William Burroughs, Charles Willeford, James Elroy, Bret Easton Ellis and Don deLillo have shown how the administration of cities is not corrupt, but inherently predatory. Speaking directly to supra-national, neo-liberal depredation, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Delillo (in Point Omega), and Richard Godwin (Mr Glamour) are matched by Gerard Cappa, in Black Boat Dancing, and his earlier Blood from a Shadow . As with noir of the mid-20th century, protagonists are not destroyed but potentially redeemed by their own sin and suffering. They force their humanity to come to life. That might happen with Con Maknazpy, Cappa’s protagonist. He is a kind of Hercules, who back in Shakespeare’s time (as Coriolanus) was admired as a ubermensch-like natural force: proud, without any desire other than to survive honorably without compromise. Con is modeled on the Irish hero Cu Chulainn, a kind of Golem when he cannot know friend from foe in his battle-frenzy. But Con is no man of clay. He is, however, shaped by the 21st century successors of earlier oligarchs out of the U.S., China, Russia, Dubai.
Con fought for Bushworld in Iraq, but his motivation was to protect his people, not to strengthen the purveyors of the world’s fossil fuels and the investment banks’ freedom to “do God’s work,” as the head of GoldmanSach’s smirkingly put it. Like many soldiers, he has been forced to re-up, in order to get the money needed so that his own son can manage his inner furies as Con cannot do with him. State-sanctioned blackmail. His Herculean quality is the reason he is “needed,” and made offers he cannot refuse. He must scour half the known world in search of a computer genius whose hacking skills attract super-powers who need to “sanctify” their missions.
The way China and America confront one another in an era of cyber-warfare is depicted with pin point accuracy in a description of how Con and a Chinese, handcuffed together after being kidnapped by a Brazilian gang, regard each other as separate species. The contrasts and similarities continue throughout much of the novel. Cappa’s skills are first-rate at showing in excellently depicted incidents a principal 21st century reality. That is warfare and cyber-warfare’s us/them hate and fear.
Perhaps the most revealing power-struggle involves the race to control minds. Even terrorism (drones, suicide bombers, mall shootings, shock and awe) takes a back seat to the ability of the kind of torture which the victim is made to inflict on himself. This is why military contractors may come from the psychiatrists of academia. In Black Boat Dancing, there is such as figure, Dr Blake, who reminds me of one other essential piece of power-addiction, Burrough’s Dr. Benway. The ultimate 21st century heroism is to struggle for the control of one’s own destiny. Con Maknazpy’s struggle is a remarkable example.
William Burroughs, Charles Willeford, James Elroy, Bret Easton Ellis and Don deLillo have shown how the administration of cities is not corrupt, but inherently predatory. Speaking directly to supra-national, neo-liberal depredation, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Delillo (in Point Omega), and Richard Godwin (Mr Glamour) are matched by Gerard Cappa, in Black Boat Dancing, and his earlier Blood from a Shadow . As with noir of the mid-20th century, protagonists are not destroyed but potentially redeemed by their own sin and suffering. They force their humanity to come to life. That might happen with Con Maknazpy, Cappa’s protagonist. He is a kind of Hercules, who back in Shakespeare’s time (as Coriolanus) was admired as a ubermensch-like natural force: proud, without any desire other than to survive honorably without compromise. Con is modeled on the Irish hero Cu Chulainn, a kind of Golem when he cannot know friend from foe in his battle-frenzy. But Con is no man of clay. He is, however, shaped by the 21st century successors of earlier oligarchs out of the U.S., China, Russia, Dubai.
Con fought for Bushworld in Iraq, but his motivation was to protect his people, not to strengthen the purveyors of the world’s fossil fuels and the investment banks’ freedom to “do God’s work,” as the head of GoldmanSach’s smirkingly put it. Like many soldiers, he has been forced to re-up, in order to get the money needed so that his own son can manage his inner furies as Con cannot do with him. State-sanctioned blackmail. His Herculean quality is the reason he is “needed,” and made offers he cannot refuse. He must scour half the known world in search of a computer genius whose hacking skills attract super-powers who need to “sanctify” their missions.
The way China and America confront one another in an era of cyber-warfare is depicted with pin point accuracy in a description of how Con and a Chinese, handcuffed together after being kidnapped by a Brazilian gang, regard each other as separate species. The contrasts and similarities continue throughout much of the novel. Cappa’s skills are first-rate at showing in excellently depicted incidents a principal 21st century reality. That is warfare and cyber-warfare’s us/them hate and fear.
Perhaps the most revealing power-struggle involves the race to control minds. Even terrorism (drones, suicide bombers, mall shootings, shock and awe) takes a back seat to the ability of the kind of torture which the victim is made to inflict on himself. This is why military contractors may come from the psychiatrists of academia. In Black Boat Dancing, there is such as figure, Dr Blake, who reminds me of one other essential piece of power-addiction, Burrough’s Dr. Benway. The ultimate 21st century heroism is to struggle for the control of one’s own destiny. Con Maknazpy’s struggle is a remarkable example.
July 11, 2014
There are no good guys, and you never know which bad guys are showing up next. I thought this was going to be easier to follow, and it was for a while. Really like Gerard's writing. Reminds me of James Lee Burke. I admit that I got lost a few times, but just kept plugging along and caught up with the story again. Will we ever get to know Rose??
Sorry to be rambling. Lots of thoughts still going round in my head about this one.
I will keep reading Gerard's books.
Sorry to be rambling. Lots of thoughts still going round in my head about this one.
I will keep reading Gerard's books.
October 6, 2014
A very fun read! Maknazpy has gotten into more than he can chew this time, or has he? He and his good buddy Ferdia get into a big ol' mess in Portugal. It was fun to see the new characters, to read about places I know and to see him get out of this one. I really enjoyed the female character Yasmin, and also the old man Luis. Great to read, looking forward to the next Maknazpy adventure! :)
March 17, 2016
A remarkable thriller about money, technology and geopolitics that manages to feel both timeless and timely. When a hacker in possession of potentially explosive information goes on the run, war hero-turned-bounty hunter Con Maknazpy is recruited to bring him in. If Maknazpy fails, and the United States’ role in the Arab Spring is made public, dire global economic and security implications may ensue...
Check out the rest of my review at BestThrillers.com.
Check out the rest of my review at BestThrillers.com.
September 2, 2016
A surprise! I was not expecting so many twists... And I congratulate and give credit to the author for it! I saw myself going back and forth to keep up with the great plot and story. And this book goes fast! A great thriller that makes us love the genre (even those how are not fans of thrillers, like me). I recommend reading it with open-mind and full attention to get envolved in the story and really enjoy...oh and the description of Lisbon, capital of my home country, is very accurate!
March 28, 2015
What author Gerard Cappa gives us is an intricate thriller with many levels. One is never quite sure where he's headed or how he intends to get there.
Con Maknazpy is the man caught in the middle with his own government, the Chinese, Russian mobsters, a brazilian gang, and who knows else all wanting his hide. He's not sure why, but methodically goes toward figuring it all out.
That is, until his long absent father puts in an appearance.
Not a bad thriller
Con Maknazpy is the man caught in the middle with his own government, the Chinese, Russian mobsters, a brazilian gang, and who knows else all wanting his hide. He's not sure why, but methodically goes toward figuring it all out.
That is, until his long absent father puts in an appearance.
Not a bad thriller
June 1, 2014
I was lucky enough to review the 'Black Boat Dancing' thriller before release. Not only we are presented with Maknazpy's temper in full throttle, it also gives us a rather accurate view of the city of Lisbon. To everyone that loves a good thriller, I highly recommend it.
Want to Read
October 4, 2014Who is not thrilled to enter the undiscovered country that is a unknown writer and his book?
June 29, 2014
I was excited to win this book because of the description on the back cover. My cup of tea and my favorite genre and subject matters! I read to page 172 of 276 and just ran out of patience to continue. So I'm giving two stars instead of one hoping that the remainder of the book would tie together all the loose ends.
Some issues...
First, the typeface is too small and too light. I showed several people to make sure it wasn't me and got the same result... OMG! Can't see it! Second, don't know if English is the author's first language because of the use of the word 'to' instead of 'the' when saying "What the f***!" or "What the "hell". A minor point but it was weird and distracting. Third, descriptions of body fluids and hateful stares and glares is not the same as character development.
Sorry, Gerard, character and plot development skills need work. Keep trying!
Some issues...
First, the typeface is too small and too light. I showed several people to make sure it wasn't me and got the same result... OMG! Can't see it! Second, don't know if English is the author's first language because of the use of the word 'to' instead of 'the' when saying "What the f***!" or "What the "hell". A minor point but it was weird and distracting. Third, descriptions of body fluids and hateful stares and glares is not the same as character development.
Sorry, Gerard, character and plot development skills need work. Keep trying!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews