Gene Hackman (1930–2025)

This is a three-star thriller, the extra star is for Hackman, who I always loved as an actor. The opening premises are all good and well done in the Patterson style, couple-page chapter, sparse description format. Eventually though, problems with the telling pile up (almost like it was halfway between a novel and an extended screenplay).

I don't want to harp on the issues at length, but one of them is the main protagonist--Sergeant Julie Worth, Missouri State Police/Highway Patrol. A good cop show more with a tough reputation--internally a little worried that maybe she's too quick to use the gun. That's all well and good. By the time you're nearing the end of the novel however, you're a bit bewildered about how every other cop in the universe doesn't really do much of anything investigatively. They are either hindrances to Worth (whose daughter becomes enveloped in the hunt for the killer when said killer abducts her for a couple of weeks!), or just plain zeros. This could potentially work--if ever explained or justified--and if Worth herself were at the top of her game mentally and physically the whole time. But neither of these is the case. I just kept asking myself: "Why aren't the other cops doing anything at all to move this investigation along?? Not even while Worth is sleeping??!!"

And one more thing.... Hackman didn't seem to be able to decide if his killer was a truly terrifying psychopath that couldn't be stopped, or a shitty little runt who simply hadn't run into anyone that could swat him down like a fly yet. He seems to play both roles and, of course, the problem is that once you seem him playing the latter role too much, the former becomes pretty unconvincing. Sure, he's a psycho--but he becomes comic and pathetic.

A fast read, a wish a more satisfying one. Rest in Peace, Gene! show less

A very good mystery debut. Gene Hackman has feel for how people act and talk. There are near misses, but they don't feel as contrived as a lot of new authors would make them. The villain is not invincible. Like the ending.

I picked up this book because I’d seen it mentioned as a “swashbuckling sea adventure” with plenty of action and piracy.
However, reading it, I was reminded that when I was a kid I went through a big phase of reading lots of historical nautical books, both fiction and non-fiction. (There were lots of sailors and sea voyages in my family history, which is where the interest stemmed from… check out THIS BOOK, it features my distant relative getting cannibalized…) So, although I show more don’t know HOW to sail or anything like that, I feel that I’ve got a pretty good concept of what life was like on a 19th-century sailing ship. And, in this book, I just wasn’t feeling it. I didn’t notice many inaccuracies (other than that I found it hard to believe that on a ship of 26 hands, there would be sailors that ‘didn’t know each other’ after any amount of voyaging…) but I just wanted more details of shipboard life… but, this is a book that doesn’t get bogged down in details or verisimilitude… it actually, I think, would make a very good movie – and I’m sure that must have been in Gene Hackman’s mind when he was working on it. It’s got just about the level of depth and characterization of your average big-budget movie, with plenty of action scenes, local color and exotic locations (all politically-corrected, to a certain degree.)
The story has to do with a young man who takes to the sea after his parents are murdered by a Cuban Count who seizes the family property. He makes friends with another young man, a victim of shipwreck, and together they have seagoing adventures, as he waits for his chance to take revenge… The checklist of Things That Happen At Sea occurs, fairly predictably – the standout scenes are diving scenes, which (considering that Lenihan is a deep-sea diving expert) seem technically very believable, if contextually very unlikely. show less

Okay, I’ll admit that I picked up this book out of curiosity to see if the former actor can write.

Northern New Mexico and central Colorado provide the setting for this novel. Jubal, a 17 year old boy, is out hunting when he hears shots and sees smoke at his family’s farmstead. He returns to find his family under attack by a gang of lawless rowdies. To his horror, he finds his father gagged, trussed up, and suspended over a roaring bonfire. Seeing the indescribable agony his father is show more experiencing in being roasted alive, Jubal knows he must reach inside himself and shoot his father. Jubal’s mother is already dead and his sister is dying. Both have been brutally raped.

He needs to decide who he is—a young man bent on revenge or a boy whose upbringing would settle for seeing justice done. The dilemma haunts him through the rest of the book as he encounters unsympathetic and incompetent lawmen who want to treat him as the guilty party. Jubal doesn’t entirely give up on the legal system but knows it is up to him to hunt these men down. In time he becomes frightened by how readily he relies on a gun. But he regains his balance when a spirited girl sees the good in him.
It is in the Cripple Creek goldfields that Jubal becomes a man when he confronts one of the killers. During the encounter Jubal learns that the use of guns sometimes has unintended consequences that are impossible to ever put right again. The outcome makes Jubal decide to resume a normal life at home and put guns aside, but the last of the killers have other ideas. Jubal must act decisively again, this time to save others. But he learns heroic acts are not always neat and clean when operating in the adult world with adult rules. And oh yes, Hackman did a credible job in telling the story.
http://ericheipert.com/2011/11/05/a-young-fictional-hero-from-payback-at-morning... show less