Craig Holden

I love Craig Holden's style of writing. He's not afraid to vilify his protagonists. He's also completely inside his character's heads, fully developing them and their histories in a way that few authors do. This story was gritty and emotional, entering territory that most writers would eschew, but doing it in a way that makes the reader welcome the outcome, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.

This novel is almost the obverse side of "The Great Gatsby, though with a far more intense scrutiny of the violence and seediness of racketeering during Prohibition"!

Like "James Gatz", George Remus comes from humble origins but sticks around, working from an early age to help to support his family. He starts out working in his uncle's pharmacy and works so well that he subsequently buys him out, and goes on to establish a chain of other stores. Once he is financially secure he pays his way show more through law school and starts to practise as a defence attorney.

Fast forward to the Prohibition era. Using a little-known loophole Remus is able to secure huge supplies of alcohol and builds up a wide network around Cincinnati feeding the demands of a suddenly and reluctantly dry population. He then meets Imogene, beautiful daughter of his bent lawyer. She falls in love with him immediately. He is more aloof, but does gradually fall under her spell. Eventually they marry, having negotiated various hurdles (not the least of which is her husband, severely wounded in the First World War and now confined to a private medical home ).

The novel actually opens in 1926 with Remus killing Imogene. The bulk of the book is actually about his trial, in which he puts forward a defence of insanity, with flashbacks letting the reader see how things came about. The Public Prosecutor is Charlie Taft, son of the former President and Chief Justice, who is driven by a growing (almost obsessive) empathy for the victim.

The plot is very taut, and Holden keeps the reader engaged throughout. Very impressive. show less

According to mythology, Zeus raped the princess Europa on the small island of Matala, so it is the ideal setting for Holden’s dark, erotic, noir-thriller. Filled with tough, cynical characters, Matala is a short, crisp read that demonstrates the sharp contrast between the haves and have-nots. The line between sensuality and violence often blurs, melding the two into a shapeless, symbolic raping of innocence that changes both the con and the mark at the very core of their being.

A show more combination graduation-birthday gift from her parents, this six week, guided tour of all the famous European sites was a painfully boring journey for Darcy Arlene. A napping chaperon provided the perfect opportunity to sneak away from the Hotel Abitazione and experience the “real city.” Walking through Rome she makes her way onto a bridge, spanning the Tiber, where she encounters an attractive young man who seems oddly familiar. An innocent introduction leads to dinner, where the two continue to talk like old friends. Will invites Darcy to meet him for drinks at a wine bar in Olympic Village but is convinced she’s blowing him off when she insists on returning to the hotel to face her chaperon and freshen up.

Appearing innocent and completely out of her element Darcy makes her way to the wine bar where she meets Will and is unceremoniously introduced to his older traveling companion of two years, Justine. After several rounds, Darcy explains she has to be up early to catch a train to Florence - the next stop on the tour schedule but is easily convinced to stay for one more drink. The next morning, still a bit dazed and confused, she realizes she has missed the train and has been separated from both the tour group and all her cash. Her new friends comfort her, offering to travel with her to Florence, provided she pay their way, of course.

Justine was, by all accounts the web-weaver, setting up the marks, utilizing her vast network of underground contacts, she was a master manipulator and a sadist by nature. But she knew her ex-husband, Maurice held the key to the big-scam. And although she hated the very thought of working for Maurice, the chance to settle debts and make some real cash was too tempting and she reluctantly agreed. The job was pretty straight-forward, but not without risk…deliver a package to Matala by Christmas. When pushed for more information, Maurice simply stated, “a special gift for one who has everything.”

Finally free of chaperons, routines and the stifling constraints thereof, the excitement of the unknown, the dangers that could await her, delighted her beyond anything she had ever known. Darcy fancied herself streetwise, the mere thought of stealing awakened carnal urges deep within her that seemed to electrify her entire body. She knows there’s something fishy going on between Justine and Will - things don’t quite add up - she’s more than willing to play along because she finds the thrill of the con so appealing. Justine and Will had survived in a state of codependency, now with the addition of a third angle, what had once seemed a benevolent need to dominate and control, felt very wrong. Will realized he was changing, but so too were Justine and Darcy. What follows is a series of double deals and cutthroat betrayals that keep the reader on the edge, searching for answers.

How this three-way plays itself out is Holden’s trump card, which he skillfully holds close to the vest. The tension builds as the story hurtles toward the moment all the players and pawns in this high stakes game face off in a final showdown. Struggling with the contours and mysteries of ideals and self-discovery each character is laid bare for all to see at the conclusion.

What begins with a spoiled little rich girl touring Europe, downshifts into a fast-paced romp through the half-dens and hostels, courtesy of a couple of well-seasoned grifters. As the three-match wits and one-up each other in an increasingly dangerous game of cat and mouse, the roles of con and mark blur.

Chock-full of deceit, debauchery and dark desires, Matala is best suited for a mature reader. The characters are well developed and delivered with razor-sharp precision. The plot is well crafted and presented in stages which adds depth and dimension to the story. Although all the threads are neatly tied together at the conclusion, it feels forced and contrived, as if the story simply ran out of steam and was hurriedly wrapped up. However, with Holden’s exceptionally ability to craft compelling and complex characters I look forward to his next novel with great anticipation. show less

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

As I've said here before, I'm a fan of sometimes picking up and going through just completely random books, found through completely random means, for two main reasons: professionally, because it keeps the list of books reviewed here at CCLaP closer to the list of books available in most readers' show more lives; and then personally just because I'm a heavy reader myself, have been since a small child in fact, and sometimes tear through random titles just because I'm bored and can't find anything else to read. And thus do we come to the 2007 Eurothriller Matala by Craig Holden, which a few weeks ago I came across completely by accident in the "new books" section at my neighborhood library, and checked out completely on a whim; and indeed, it's not a horrible book at all nor ultimately was it a waste of my time, although it can definitely be called a textbook example of a type of novel I talk about here sometimes, that "book to read when you're stuck at a relative's and you forgot to bring a book yourself." So in other words, if you're looking to kill a day or two over Easter in your slightly creepy great-aunt's place, and you're staring at a wall full of dusty Zane Gray titles and Readers Digest compilations, if you were to come across Matala (which you very well might under such circumstances) it would undoubtedly be the very best book on that wall. That's not saying a lot, but at least it's saying something.

Set in a pre-EU 1987 for no discernible reason I could see, the novel is essentially a noir -- the tale of spoiled and bored high-school graduate / new undergraduate Darcy Arlen, traipsing across Europe over Christmas vacation on a parents-sponsored guided field trip, yearning for adventure but unable to figure out how to break free of her group and have some. Enter, then, emaciated badboy Will, with whom Darcy starts up a random conversation one evening on a Rome bridge; as you can guess, in reality he's a charming low-level con artist and pill freak, who was just about to hit rock-bottom before meeting the cash-flushed Darcy and literally charming the pants off her. And thus does he convince her to sneak out later and join him at the rock-and-roll slacker hostel where he's staying; and thus does she meet Will's much older femme-fatale partner in crime, Justine; and thus do the two of them convince Darcy to simply split off from the guided tour group, since she's over eighteen now and can do what she wants, and instead go on a trip with the two of them to move a mysterious package through pre-war Yugoslavia and eventually to the small Grecian town of Matala. And thus do things start going from bad to worse as they make their way eastward, and eventually from worse to "relentlessly violent Oscar-winning Coen Brothers adaptation."

As you can see, in fact, predictability is the biggest problem with Matala; because the writing itself is just fine (or at least serviceable), just that the storyline feels like a framework that never got filled in. This is what elevates certain genre work to the top of the heap, after all, that since all of them are ultimately based on the same tiny amount of similar plots, such details as character-fleshing and McGuffin-nuancing is really what separates a great one from a "meh" one; and Matala is a "meh" novel to be sure, one that feels like a sculpture an artist worked on just long enough to reveal a general shape, but not long enough for us to recognize who it's actually supposed to be. Now in all fairness, Holden does try to shake things up from the usual noirish plot on display here, but even his exceptions somehow feel like typical genre rules when all is said and done; the "innocent dupe" who isn't quite so innocent, the Oedipal connection between the con-artist lovers that fairly broadcasts itself from the very beginning.

And then of course are the times when common sense takes a backseat because it would ruin something in the clunky storyline being developed, as sure a sign of an immature writer as anything; for example, the fact that the private investigator hired by Darcy's parents knows full-well what horrific fate awaits her once she gets to Matala, yet refuses to flat-out just tell her during their phone calls in fear of "ruining the surprise" for us as readers. That's the kind of basic "Plotting 101" mistake that relegates such novels to the Zane Gray Readers Digest Creepy Great Aunt Back Bedroom Bookshelf in the first place, one of many such mistakes on display here. Do yourself a favor next Christmas and simply don't forget the book you're currently reading, when you head off to family holiday; if you do, though, you could do worse than to stumble across one of Holden's many genre thrillers on a musty basement bookshelf.

Out of 10: 6.8

And P.S., because it's worth mentioning, this is a great cover design in my opinion by Jaime Putorti, who's received lots of online praise in the past for other book covers. I wish all genre thrillers looked this sharp! show less