Review: "Black Water Rising"

There's something really special about reading a good thrilling book. One with a bit of crime, a bit of mystery and lots of thriller-elements - you know a book that makes you turn the pages faster and faster because you need, NEED, to know what happens next. 

"Black Water Rising" by Attica Locke is not one of those books. It wants to be, yes, but it's not. I picked it up last Saturday when the weather here in South London was gorgeous and really warm for a September day. My plan was to spend the entire afternoon on the balcony with a good book and I did. The book was not very good though. Actually it was really a disappointment, especially as it has had so much praise. 

The plot is good, it has a lot going for it. The main character is a young-ish lawyer by the name of Jay - he has a strong, intelligent wife, a lazy secretary and a traumatic past. On his wife Bernie's birthday, their romantic evening on the river is ruined when they fish a young, terrified woman out of the water. Although Jay is adamant not to become involved in what becomes an increasingly mysterious and threatening situation, he slowly but surely gets dragged in. Not just into the case of the young woman from the river but also in a union strike which his father-in-law, the reverend, is championing. The case of the young woman is by no means straight-forward and it brings out memories from Jay's politically active past which ended in disaster. 

So far so good. It all sounds really interesting. But somehow, somewhere, it all goes horribly wrong and it just becomes dull. Really, really dull. I'm not sure exactly what it is but I think it's quite possibly down to the main character. Jay painfully un-exciting. There is nothing, nothing, there to make me care about him. Actually that goes for most of the characters - the only exceptions being Jay's wife Bernie and her sister Evelyn who is a minor character. 

It was a struggle to finish this one, it didn't become interesting at any point and the characters never came to life. What a waste of a good plot and a sunny afternoon. 

Read it if: You can't fall asleep. 

Book Shopping Spree...

Yes I have been on a book shopping spree. Online shopping that is. And here's what will be arriving for me in the mail soon...

"The Casual Vacancy" by J. K. Rowling

It's been pre-ordered and is due for release on September 27th! This is what it says on amazon.com: 
"When Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…. Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the town’s council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations? Blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults."

"The Unnumbered" by Sam North

This is what it says on amazon.co.uk:
"Contemporary London. You know what that's like. But there's another London too, another race: the streets are swirling with them. They have no jobs, no driving licence, no social security, no identity of any sort. They pass us by every day; the unnumbered. Nio is an unnumbered. He's twenty three, and Greek. He's built a home for himself in Coldfall Woods, with a roof for a floor and a floor for a roof. It's his secret, but not for much longer. The city has eyes and ears. It's coming to get him. Then there's dark eyed Mila. She's fifteen and lives with her parents in three caravans parked off the North Circular Road. She's an unnumbered too, like her little brother, but she's just bought herself an identity, and works as a checkout girl. It's a start. She's smart. She's going to reach the stars some day. She can feel it in the air. Lucas Tooth can sense it too. He works his charm on all these women; the hopeful, the sad, the desperate. He's the heartless best at this game, but only when they feel the fear does it bring him the pleasure. He's destroyed Anjali, once a hardworking student; now it's Mila's turn. But Nio and Mila fall in love; dreamer and realist. Together they will take on this London and all it can throw at them. But it is not an easy city. It exacts a hard tribute. The city has brought them together. The city could tear them apart."

"Black Water Rising" by Attica Locke
From amazon.com: 
"Jay Porter has long since made peace with not living the American Dream. He runs his fledgling law practice out of a dingy Houston strip mall—where his most promising client is a low-rent call girl—and he's determined to leave the sins of his past buried: the guns, the FBI file, the trial that nearly destroyed him. That is, until the night he saves a woman from drowning and inadvertently opens a Pandora's box. Her secrets reach into the upper echelons of Houston's corporate power brokers and ensnare Jay in a murder investigation that could cost him his practice, his family . . . even his life."