Finally my thoughts.. review.
(I wish I had more time to go back through the chapters and make this post more detailed. But, I have to do my taxes in fill out an FAFSA too. From now on I am going to actually use the Annotate/Clippings feature of my Kindle as I read the MRBC books. DUH!
)
This book started out with a bang. Good action... a mystery and a mysterious character. I couldn't wait to turn the page (change the screen?) to see what would happen next.
Then, chapter 2 and the book crashed to the ground. Not that it was bad, it was just very different and hit you hard with religious symbolism and homosexual topics, somewhat explicit also. Not that I have a problem with this if it fits into the story.
It was hard to keep reading after chapter two... It was like I had read the first chapter of two different books. One was mostly action, very little descriptions of scenery and such. The second chapter was dripping with that stuff.
I continued on... I don't recall chapters 3&4 very much. But, the book really took off in chap 5. This is where Suter meets Muriel of course. It was back to the book started in chapter 1. Things moved quickly from that point forward.
Then, every now and then we got more of the chapter 2 book. So, I do see Dixie Gals comments about how the action scenes and the descriptive symbolism scenes were very separated. They didn't seem to merge well.
Suter to me was totally normal. Yes, he was stir crazy. He was torn between doing the right thing and doing the easy thing. Aren't we all? He didn't want to get involved. Which giving the gun to Muriel he knew he was doing. When he killed the first gang member he didn't enjoy it. He didn't even know why he did it.
Suter, was not perfect. He made mistakes. But luckily he overcame this.
The towns people were a bit cowed, yes. But, there were some that were ploting to fight back. But, it isn't easy to defeat a gang of 8 with weapons. Also, they are like most people, they trusted they were keeping their leader safe by not fighting back. However, after several of their own were killed they needed to understand that their leader would rather have sacrificed himself if it saved his people.
Remember, everyone had just been through a huge ordeal. The plauge was not long over. It was in everyones memory. The death and suffering was very real and not yet healed. This was true for Suter and the towns people.
Frienihough was wanting to fight back. As were others. They were being carefull and making their plans. Suter's apperance accelerated it. They were lucky he arived when he did.
Bex was an interesting charater. We are not sure if he belived his drivel or not. At times I thought he was a complete lunatic and really thought he was an agent of satan and that Suter was an angel. Then there were moments when I thought Bex knew exactaly what he was doing. Even keeping his chief lutenient (I can't recal his name) guessing.
I feel bad for Shaeums. He was a pawn. He didn't want to die nor did he want to be involved. He was one of the weekest personalities in the book. I was hoping that he would man up and end up assiting Suter in the coup. But, I guess not. Not supringly he got what he got because he never took his own future in his hands.
At the end of the book I feel that Suter did see Helen. Not his dead ex but Helen that he saved. The women just didn't know that she had been in his room. That he saw her as his ex just went to show how sick and disoriented he was. Once again, I didn't ever consider that he was not sane. (Maybe the author had different ideas about this.)
Bottom line, I enjoyed this book. I paid for it. And I will be getting back to this author to see what else he has instore for me. As someone else put here very well... I missed the book when I was done reading it and thought about it for quite a bit.
Well, that's it. Much more than I expected to remember/type.
Would love to hear reaction to my thoughts and comments.
BOb