The Dark Tide by Andrew Gross
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Book Reviews of The Dark Tide
Book Review: Okay read
Summary: 3 Stars
This book was okay which is saying a lot since I hated the lead female character. Karen is too whiny, too privileged, just too helpless. She had a rich husband and a house keeper. She spent her days doing yoga and going to school board meetings. Yeah, I felt sorry for her when her husband died and left her four million dollars. I was rooting for the bad guys, but still I read the whole book and it wasn't bad. The next book in the Ty Hauck series is much better. Not much Karen.Book Review: Sub-par writing, poor editing, inconsistent character development
Summary: 2 Stars
First 30% or so of the book: poor grammar, non existent editing. Publisher must be hoping to sell based on prior affiliation with Patterson rather than by producing a quality product.
If this book weren't free on Kindle I would ask Amazon to give back my money. I will be extremely cautious before purchasing anything from publisher HarperCollins e-books; this book needed quite a bit more work before it was published. Think back to a research paper you wrote in high school or college, one of those papers assigned early in the term that you started writing the night before it was due, and you will have a good sense of the overall quality of this book: A C-, maybe a C.
Details are the hallmark of really good, well written, carefully crafted thriller/mystery fiction. This falls so far short. The writing is careless, inattentive, inconsistent and frequently just plain bad, and affects the overall flow of the story, as well as character and plot development. I gave two stars (rather than one) because I still have 75% to read, but I'm not encouraged. [Note: I've now read another 10-15% or so, and the writing improves a bit and the story moves a little faster.] If you think this will be on par with the best of Patterson writing, you will be disappointed. If you think you want to read this book, borrow it from someone-don't spend your money.
After the first 25% of the book (per Kindle locations)I was so stunned at the poor word choices, bad grammar and inconsistencies that I went back to the beginning and added notes to the most glaring blunders. I've got more than 40. Some examples:
Confusing timeline references: hit and run victim with Florida connections has a 1996 ticket stub to a Florida Seminoles' championship football game in his wallet. Interviewed by the police just hours after the victim is killed, the victim's boss says that the victim has worked for him about 1 year, and that the victim took everyone out for drinks after Florida won the championship game. These facts would indicate that the victim is killed in 1997 or 1998. But the hit and run is the same day as the bomb, and both are sometime after 9-11. Maybe the ticket stub and the championship game the boss refers to are different events, but there is nothing in this scene of the story which suggests this possibility which leaves the timing confusing.
The worst: The cop's tragic back story. We know before starting this paragraph that he is remembering his daughter's death, but know nothing at all about the circumstances of the death. This is so replete with blunders I'm going to quote it:
**** What had he forgotten at the store that made him rush back in? Pudding Snacks. . . [I read this to say he is running back into the store]
Jamming the van hastily into park. How many time had he done that -and it stayed? A thousand? A hundred thousand? [He had already started the van, presumably in the store parking lot, when he realized that he forgot to get Pudding Snacks. If he started the van, the daughter is presumably inside the van]
"Watch out guys. Daddy's got to back out of the garage. . . [what garage? Daddy's at the store, in the van, where he has just remembered he didn't buy Pudding Snacks, isn't he?]
As he headed back to the garage, receipt in hand, wallet in hand, they heard the shriek. Jessie's. [Back to the garage from where? Is there a parking garage at the store? Why does he have a receipt in his hand, but no Pudding Snacks? ]
Beth's frozen eyes-"oh my God, Ty, no"- as through the kitchen window they watched the van roll back. [How is he watching through the kitchen window if he is heading back to the garage? And if he was heading to the garage, why run back to the kitchen rather continuing to the garage? And what happened to rushing into the store?]
Nora never uttered a sound. ***
Really bad things can happen to good parents, so maybe the general premise of the daughter's death isn't impossible, though a detective/cop/ football hero seems unlikely to pass his kids twice playing where they shouldn't be without stopping to watch them move to an acceptable location. But he never rushed into a store, the words don't suggest he rushed into the house, and what he forgot were his wallet and a receipt. Also, if he is walking to the garage, and a shriek comes from the garage, why would he go back to the kitchen to see what the shriek was about?
Internally inconsistent facts, poor word choices and bad grammar: There is no realism in the writing: the characters do not act the way real people do, nor do they act consistent with the characteristics the author ascribes to them or the contextual background facts and descriptions he provides. Events as described suffer the same problem. Word choices used to describe events and characters are ill thought out and careless, often leading to inaccuracy. Some examples:
The eye and hair color of the lead character depend entirely on which chapter you are reading. Eyes might be "never let you go hazel" or could be brown. Hair color is caramel or light brown (arguably the same) or auburn, which is neither caramel or light brown, as anyone who has ever stood in the hair color aisle at the drugstore knows.
The major client of the hedge fund husband ran before his death was Goldman Sachs. Or Morgan Stanley. Again, it all depends on what page you are reading.
The dogs: The family has a dog; it used to have two dogs, but one was run over in the street in front of the house a week ago. But when the still-living dog runs out the open front door, husband makes no effort to get dog back into house and instead leaves for work with wife yelling to let the dog in. This isn't realistic or consistent with the other information the author provided: the family had two dogs (so presumably liked dogs), one dog was killed a week earlier in the street, and "[e]veryone was still upset" over the loss. If we believe this later information, then it isn't believable that Dad went to work and left the remaining dog to run loose through the neighborhood only a week after the other family dog was killed doing exactly the same thing.
The typical morning: Husband wakes up and the first thing he does is let the dog out then he heads to kitchen for coffee, which is "how every day began;" but, read on another chapter or two and the author tells us that the dog going outside presented husband with an "unexpected opportunity" (missed) for "rolling over to [his wife] back in bed." If every day began with letting the dog outside first thing after getting out of bed, then the dog being outside right after they wake up doesn't present an unexpected opportunity--the opportunity is present every day.
Dropping off the car: Husband remembers while dressing that he must drop off the car for repairs and take the train and is frustrated because "[i]t would set him back a bit." But read on to the next paragraph: once dressed, he was "usually in rush mode" but "[t]his morning, thanks to the car, he had a moment to sip his coffee."
The lost child: Both kids are old enough to drive. Mom starts thinking about how, "a few years ago" she was in a department store and for a while one of the kids was missing. At the time the child was four or five. A decade (or longer) is more than "a few years."
The cop: Cop was a rising star in big city; following personal tragedy, he becomes detective in smaller city/suburb. Up to this point, cop seems honest, conscientious, good leader, smart, etc. etc. In short, all of the good qualities you would like to see in a detective heading violent crimes. But then: Vacationing cop breaks into bad guy house (burglary) with a loaded gun (armed burglary). Before smashing window to get into house, he goes to the "condenser box" in the yard and pulls out the phone and alarm wires. After getting into house, he waits to see if alarm is sounding. [Didn't he pull the alarm wire just minutes before?] Muses that homeowner alarm probably wasn't connected to local security because homeowner wouldn't want outside interference. [But, again, he pulled the alarm. He also pulled the phone wire. If there is remote security monitoring, they would presumably be alerted to a sudden disconnection of the alarm and the phone but those alarms are going off at the security firm, not at the house.] Bad guy's computer is on and using browsing history (which is conveniently intact) cop finds important information about the crime/s he is investigating. Cop also searches, copies and leaves with papers on desk, which also contain important information. [Taking items from the house elevates the cop's crime to an armed robbery. Oh, and since the cop entered illegally, none of the important information he collected can be used to convict bad guy unless cop can find another source of the information; even if he doesn't go to jail, he probably blew the case against the bad guy.] Before cop leaves, visitor arrives and enters the house using a key. Following a struggle, cop shoots (and injures) visitor. [If visitor dies from injury cop has committed felony murder.] Nothing in the story line explains why cop suddenly lost his senses and became a felon, particularly when there were options to enter the house legally.
Poor word choice/bad grammar: all of the above is described as "totally illegal" in the cop's musing. As compared to "partially illegal?" The cop's "totally illegal" presence in the house is compared to the visitor's: the visitor had "access." So did the cop. "Access" isn't the issue or the point. The point is the visitor entered with a key, and thus the visitor's presence is presumably legitimate. The contrast is illegal v. legal, not illegal v. access.
Bad guy homeowner: Bad guy homeowner is in the security business, but has left home with his computer on. Bad guy seems to be working for and helping other bad guys steal hundreds of millions or billions. Bad guy is smart enough to password protect his email, but doesn't clear browsing history from his browser, or password protect his internet access, or turn off his computer and use a BIOS password.
The cop (again): removes evidence (the 1996 ticket stub) from the hit and run crime file (still open and under investigation) and gives it to crime victim's father, all on his own initiative. Victim's father didn't ask for the ticket and there is no hint that he even knew it was part of his victim/son's effects. As with the break-in there is nothing in the story that explains why the cop suddenly decided to toss his job out the window. Worse, the storyline is that the cop has kept this particular murder file on his desk for the past year because he wanted to solve it. The evidence he gave away may or may not be important to solving the case, but even if he solves the crime and catches the criminal, by giving away evidence he has compromised, perhaps irreparably, the case against the murderer. Are we really supposed to believe that this is how a committed cop would act?
Book Review: At least there was a plot
Summary: 2 Stars
The only thing that kept me reading was that the plot was pretty good and I was stuck on an airplane for several hours with not much else to do. I must ditto what other reviewers say about the horrid over-use of names when one character spoke to another and they were the only two people present. Nobody talks like that. How could the editor let that go? It was so annoying that it, alone, nearly made me put away the book for good. The other problem is that when a character knows that he or she is in a dangerous situation and may not know who to trust, he shouldn't reveal to a certain/potential foe all of the damning evidence that he knows about that person. How stupid is that? I had to look at the "New York Times best selling author" claim on the cover several times in disbelief --- was that a mis-print? As I said, the plot was fairly interesting, but I cannot believe that something this badly written has made it so far.Book Review: Terrible Book!
Summary: 1 Stars
Holy crap, was this book bad! Like 'terrible' bad! And the strange thing is, is that it really didn't start out that way. I remember being 30% into the book and being extremely mad that my bus wasn't a bit later since I had to put it down. Cut to me at 60% and I started thinking "Why am I STILL reading this?!" In fact, the only reason I finished it was because by that time I was already 60% in and thinking "What the hell. I need a long-ish book to up my page average..."
My main gripe with The Dark Tide was that it was boring. After the first initial 30%, it just started going downhill. I seriously didn't want to pick the book up after that. I kept thinking "And I care why?" Yes, it was incredibly snarky of me, but my God, I was bored! That should excuse my snarkalicious behavior shouldn't it? Speaking of snark: the romance. Sigh.
By the way, that wasn't a good "OMG, they are incredibly cute" sigh, but rather "WHY is a romance even being written in this book!" sigh. I have seen many a mystery ruined because the author thought it was imperative to put a romance into the mix just so the book blurb could read "Intrigue, Espionage, and ROMANCE! This book has it all!" And normally, what it has isn't good. Sure, there are exceptions. Dennis Lehane's Kenzie & Gennaro series is fantastic (the romance is actually my favorite part of the series) and Jennifer Lane's With Good Behavior did the whole romance suspense thing beautifully, but those are about the only ones. The Dark Tide didn't. At all. These two are madly in love after seeing each other like three times throughout the year she's supposed to be mourning her husband and they're already in love. In fact, she gives him that part of herself that she's always kept hidden even from her husband of 24 years. Blach! What is that part supposed to be? Shallowness? Annoyingness? Seriously, I'm dying to know. Only I'm not. Not really.
Needless to say, I did NOT like The Dark Tide. It was superficial, cliche, and oh my GOD was it BORING! I'm just so incredibly happy that it was a free Kindle pre-order and I didn't waste any money on it. Besides that, SKIP IT!
Book Review: Simply Awful
Summary: 1 Stars
I got this for free on my Kindle and it was NOT worth the price I paid. It's awful, although I kept reading it simply out of fascination at how awful it was and how much lower it could go on the "stupid" meter. At many points I was shouting in my head "you deserve to die for sheer stupidity!" at the main characters. The characters are morons, they survive mortal wounds that magically "miss vital organs" (no way to get gutshot and not hit a vital organ - it's not a vast wilderness in there with organs separated by miles of "nothing vital"), they stumble on information magically that takes them into situations where they get to do more moronic things ... I am rarely moved to review a book - it has to be really really good to motivate me. However, this book is sooooooo baaaaaaadddd that I was spurred to warn others away from it. Life is so very very short and there are more amazing books than we humans will ever have time to read, so we must all make our choices carefully. Choose NOT to read this book. Although it is entertaining in the amount of "OMG" moments I had over how stupid the characters are, and I felt sorry for them often because they were being so poorly written and put into so many horribly contrived situations - still, the writing is stilted, the sex scenes are embarrassing, the female co-protagonist was written by someone who has absolutely no insight into the female mind or psyche ... OMG, this book is AWFUL. If you are even somewhat literate, avoid avoid avoid this book. I am really hungry right now and actually having a hard time thinking straight and typing well - but I had to write this review before taking time to EAT because I was afraid I would forget to WARN ALL GENTLE AND GOOD FOLK away from this book. It does have one redeeming quality - it is LAUGHABLY bad - so if you read it you will get some guffaws. With all the struggling wonderful writers in the world who can't get published, it is a sin that this book and this author did. He writes with James Patterson? How the heck did THAT ever happen?