The Innocent – Author Taylor Stevens ~100,000 words, $24.00
The great thing about finding a debut author long after she published her first book is the short wait for her second book. I ordered the Hunger Games two months before Catching Fire came out. Then I had to wait an eternity, like a child waiting for next Christmas, to get my hands on Mockingjay. Same thing happened again. I read Taylor Stevens’ The Informationist (see review) and immediately ordered her second book The Innocent. Now I have to wait a year or more for her third, The Doll to come out. I can’t take it.
In The Innocent, Vanessa Michael Munro (still don’t see any advantage to adding “Michael”) is looking for a missing person. I know, sounds like the first book, right? Not. The missing person is the victim of an apocalypse cult. And survivors of the cult have turned to Munroe for help. Undoubtedly, the author drew on her youth spent inside an apocalypse cult to flesh out the scenario because there is a realistic feel to the compound and the people. I know what you are thinking, ‘who wants to get inside the head of a bunch of wackos?’. Usually, no one. Yet, there is something sickly fascinating about a religious cult. As long as we don’t get too close. Taylor Stevens manages to pull us through scenes with a respectable difference. She deftly shows us what life is like without having to listen to bible-babble. Authors tend to make the bad guys look really bad by giving them a series of long soliloquies designed to enrage us. In a religious cult, that could get sticky. Thankfully, Taylor Stevens takes for granted that we don’t like these people as soon as we hear ‘cult’.
The author takes us to Buenos Aires, adding to the unusual spots on earth she uses to decorate her novels. And again, the writing has the occasional literary bend without slowing to a crawl. What makes this book different is how Munroe grapples with her psychological demons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every heroine & hero has demons, but Stevens manages to bring something fresh. Maybe it’s the masculine violence she harbors, maybe it’s the dangerous way she acts out, but she is different from other formula characters. Here is a nightmare passage:
Munroe waited until they were parallel to the Escalade, and with the tinted windows working as mirrors, she struck. The speed of the attack sent the weapon flying.
She drove a fist toward his face, a leg to his groin, and inexplicably, he countered. Blow by blow, block to block, an incomprehensible speed that matched hers until, against all reason, she was on her back, arms pinned to her chest, unable to move.
Don’t worry folks, she woke up pinned by her sidekick who had saved her from living out her nightmare and killing someone. (Not a spoiler, just a small scene; don’t get worked up.)
Another good book with a good heroine from a good author. Now, Are we there yet? Is it 2013 yet?
Peace, Seeley James
