Deaver's Death of a Blue Movie Star
Napoleon Plural
LondonPosts: 10,323MI6 Agent
I picked this up from my local library to familiarise myself with new Bond author Jeffery Deaver's style. Okay, the title did it but also it looked like an easily digestible airport novel.
I'm not disappointed in that respect. It's a page turner. In one evening I got through over 100 pages. Then again, I can devour those £1 Dairy Milk special offer chocolate bars in one sitting too. It's no sign of quality.
Firstly, Deaver's stomping ground seems to be Manhattan, and the book reads like one of those private eye yarns, the style is laid-back. Occasionally a word will be emphasised in itallics.
Sometimes you'll have a sentence hanging singly by itself for effect.
A bit like that. It's about Rune, a down-on-her-luck factotum at a TV production company. She's thin and only 5' 2". That's about all the description we get. A bomb goes off at a blue movie cinema in Times Square and she investigates, hoping to do a documentary about it. The plot thickens, but that's about the only thing that does. I shouldn't be mean about it. One thing that one should notice is that Deaver suggested that Bond's inner thoughts and psychology will be a factor. That makes sense, because while this book is set in the third person, it reads like a first person novel. That is, what we see and experience is all that the main protagonist does. The centre of gravity is that of a first person novel. There are no cut aways for lengthy visual vignettes painting a scene. The third person narrator is very unobrusive in that respect, unlike Fleming.
In Fleming's novels, Fleming is the star as is his style of writing. This is often the way. But with Deaver, because he isn't at the forefront, he struggles with description which as another poster here (prob Chris No1) pointed out, seems to be inserted just for the sake of it. Sometimes it works: "They walked into a large room. A lot of black leather, though not kinky the way you'd think a porn star's apartment would be. More like some millionaire plastic surgeon would have. There was a huge glass coffee table that looked like it was three inches thick. The carpet was white and curled around the toes of Rune's boots." Actually, that sounds exactly like the sort of gaffe a porn star would own now I think of it. What does Deaver think the glass coffee table is for? Perhaps he's led a sheltered existance.
Anyway, the description is there but Deaver isn't a sensuous writer, this is fast-food fiction with thumbnail sketches. Sometimes you think if he could just write dialogue on the page, he'd prefer it. He gives you enough for someone to pitch the movie rights; anyone could play Rune really, she's not a personality exactly. Otherwise, Rune is surprisingly able to inviegle her way into suspects' conversational confidences when she has no reason to be there. Perhaps America is just a very talky, friendly place. There are also silly far fetched moments.
Overall, if you left this book on a plane by accident, you wouldn't be gutted or feel you'd left part of yourself behind. It has that trashy, Jackie Collins feel to it though in fact The Stud was quite a clever book imo, with its three-way narrative. There are zero descriptive passages that stay with you, or moments of wit. I'd advise fans to read Live and Let Die or Diamonds are Forever to acclimatise themselves to Deaver's book. Actually, I kind of feel the Ian Fleming Foundation aren't seeking quality writers in the Fleming tradition, they actually want a lightweight page-turner to read on a flight.
Oh, and despite the subject matter, not a whiff of erotic interest here.
I'm not disappointed in that respect. It's a page turner. In one evening I got through over 100 pages. Then again, I can devour those £1 Dairy Milk special offer chocolate bars in one sitting too. It's no sign of quality.
Firstly, Deaver's stomping ground seems to be Manhattan, and the book reads like one of those private eye yarns, the style is laid-back. Occasionally a word will be emphasised in itallics.
Sometimes you'll have a sentence hanging singly by itself for effect.
A bit like that. It's about Rune, a down-on-her-luck factotum at a TV production company. She's thin and only 5' 2". That's about all the description we get. A bomb goes off at a blue movie cinema in Times Square and she investigates, hoping to do a documentary about it. The plot thickens, but that's about the only thing that does. I shouldn't be mean about it. One thing that one should notice is that Deaver suggested that Bond's inner thoughts and psychology will be a factor. That makes sense, because while this book is set in the third person, it reads like a first person novel. That is, what we see and experience is all that the main protagonist does. The centre of gravity is that of a first person novel. There are no cut aways for lengthy visual vignettes painting a scene. The third person narrator is very unobrusive in that respect, unlike Fleming.
In Fleming's novels, Fleming is the star as is his style of writing. This is often the way. But with Deaver, because he isn't at the forefront, he struggles with description which as another poster here (prob Chris No1) pointed out, seems to be inserted just for the sake of it. Sometimes it works: "They walked into a large room. A lot of black leather, though not kinky the way you'd think a porn star's apartment would be. More like some millionaire plastic surgeon would have. There was a huge glass coffee table that looked like it was three inches thick. The carpet was white and curled around the toes of Rune's boots." Actually, that sounds exactly like the sort of gaffe a porn star would own now I think of it. What does Deaver think the glass coffee table is for? Perhaps he's led a sheltered existance.
Anyway, the description is there but Deaver isn't a sensuous writer, this is fast-food fiction with thumbnail sketches. Sometimes you think if he could just write dialogue on the page, he'd prefer it. He gives you enough for someone to pitch the movie rights; anyone could play Rune really, she's not a personality exactly. Otherwise, Rune is surprisingly able to inviegle her way into suspects' conversational confidences when she has no reason to be there. Perhaps America is just a very talky, friendly place. There are also silly far fetched moments.
Overall, if you left this book on a plane by accident, you wouldn't be gutted or feel you'd left part of yourself behind. It has that trashy, Jackie Collins feel to it though in fact The Stud was quite a clever book imo, with its three-way narrative. There are zero descriptive passages that stay with you, or moments of wit. I'd advise fans to read Live and Let Die or Diamonds are Forever to acclimatise themselves to Deaver's book. Actually, I kind of feel the Ian Fleming Foundation aren't seeking quality writers in the Fleming tradition, they actually want a lightweight page-turner to read on a flight.
Oh, and despite the subject matter, not a whiff of erotic interest here.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Comments
Your line "this is fast food fiction with thumbnail sketches" sums up my feelings about the two novels I have read. Deaver is also very dialogue heavy and while he's quite good at incidental detail, he's fairly underwelming when trying to create the big picture. I also agree Rune is a very unlikely heroine.
The Blue Movie finale is odd, there's some very nasty jarring stuff that hasn't really been earned somehow, and a couple of amazing, brilliant twists. On the other hand, I've started reading the WWII novel Peace by Richard Bausch and the writing is on another level, you savour it and take your time.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Or if the New York book is so bad, "Rune for Improvement"?
I didn't dislike it, but it's ardly setting the world on fire. Curiously, for an author touted as "the world's best psychological thriller writer" I didn't get the essense of his characters at all, they all seem a remarkably shallow bunch. Their motives are all a bit off the wall and the final plot twist worries me in regards a 007 novel as I foresee a Gardner-esque double cross or some ilk in the offing.