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A Novel
by Marcus Sakey
Book Reviewed by:Wake up and smell the fear! There's a new
thriller writer in town who's drawing comparisons to some of
the most established names in the business. Lee Child compares
The Blade Itself to "vintage Elmore Leonard, crossed with
classic Dennis Lehane". Kirkus Reviews thinks it reminiscent of
George Pelecanos, and Publishers Weekly describes it as just
plain "brilliant". In fact, there are so many comparisons
drawn to other writers that one can't help wondering whether
The Blade Itself is really Sakey's "voice" or whether he is
so entrenched in other people's writing that he has,
intentionally or otherwise, amalgamated these other voices into
his first book? Only time, and further books, will answer that
question!
Sakey addresses the issue of distinctiveness in a short
interview you can read at BookBrowse in which he says, "to be
honest, I don’t really worry about being distinctive—I worry
about writing as forcefully as possible, about crafting stories
that are personal and immediate and incendiary. If you do that
honestly, your voice is always going to be your own."
In the short interview at BookBrowse he explains that the
central idea came to him as he was walking from the train one
evening, "I turned down my nice street toward the nice apartment
where my nice wife waited. And suddenly it hit me that the
things that we love are also the things that make us
vulnerable—because I had these things, they could be taken from
me."
Heavyweight reviewers such as Patrick Anderson and Janet
Maslin (both writing for the New York Times) announce The
Blade Itself as an impressive start to a new career. Other
reviewers compliment Sakey for his insights into the bonds of
friendship and Danny's struggles to maintain a decent honest
life for himself against the backdrop of the powerful Chicago
landscape. One or two reviewers question whether the plot
entirely adds up, but the question is asked rhetorically,
somewhat tongue in cheek, in recognition of the fact that some
degree of reality usually has to be suspended in a thriller
- and who's going to notice when the pages are turning so fast
anyway!
This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in January 2007, and has been updated for the
November 2007 edition.
Click here to go to this issue.
If you liked The Blade Itself, try these:
by Lee Child
Published 2008
A decade post-military, Reacher has an ATM card and the clothes on his back—no phone, no ties, and no address. But now members of his old team are being killed and when someone targets Jack Reacher's team they’d better be ready for what comes right back at them!
by T Jefferson Parker
Published 2007
Following an accident, homicide detective Robbie Brownlaw, develops synesthesia, a neurological condition where your senses get mixed up. Sometimes when people talk to him, he see their voices as colored shapes provoked by the emotions of the speakers, not by the words themselves. When a sergeant in the Professional Standards Unit is found dead, ...
Pony Confidential
by Christina Lynch
In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.
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