Duma Key, ,By Stephen King

Two things stick out when I reflect on Stephen King’s work. The first is that he is the ultimate “destroyer of worlds”. In his stories, he creates the real world and the bizarre world, and sends them crashing together. And in the end, you can’t see the seams and you don’t want to, because you enjoyed the ride too well.

Anybody can write about monsters, but those aren’t always the stories we want to read because the first world, the real one, hasn’t been built well so it makes the bizarre world unbelievable and trite.

Stephen King’s worlds are built with care and precision, and it is fun to watch them crumble, seeing who survives the carnage.

Secondly, King is able to create monsters or evilness that isn’t always easy to define. If 'It' had been solely about a killer clown, would it have the lasting impact that still resonates in that child like part of our brain? I think not. King is able to make an evil that can take many forms, leaving for a storyline that isn’t one dimensional and for stories that are richer.

In Duma Key, the evil—again—is not something that isn’t easy to define and both the worlds, the bizarre and the real one, are sketched out and allowed to crash in the story. Duma Key is about Edgar Freemantle, who is a victim of a on the job crane accident, which leaves him an amputee. Part of this story is about Edgar learning to cope with his new life, minus a limb, and part of it is about the career change he goes through, dealing with the loss of a successful profession.

In a case where someone should be careful what they wish for, Edgar Freemantle finds himself to be suspiciously apt at his new talent, and the mystery unfolds from there, on the island of Duma Key , fictionally set in Florida .

Duma Key is not a short novel, but the pace is set just right. Is it King’s best work? That’s not for me to decide but for the people who have a degree in judging other people’s work. If I don’t like something, I won’t read it, and you won’t see it reviewed here. Besides that, it is hard for me to compare any of King’s work to the Talisman books, let alone the Dark Tower Series, but I have enjoyed the majority of his work, and I am geeked about the Ginger Bread Girl, which comes out close to 2009.

Darkness Take My Hand, By Dennis Lehane

The second in the five part series featuring Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, private detectives, involves a story much darker and bloodier than the first. Where the first book took the two heroes to the streets for blood shed, and involved a heavily dark child abuse situation, book 2 is about a killer genius, and his plans to wreck the life of Patrick Kenzie.

Wow, Lehane knows how to take his characters to the bin, let them wallow around in it, and then beat them up some more. Some times it's hard to imagine how close these characters come to having a great day, love, or even a solid friendship before these things melt in their hands and leave scars.

One theme has run through both novels now, and that this the price for revenge. What is the toll in taking the own law into your hands? The protagonists deal with this, and deal with the sins of the fathers, regarding self appointed law makers.

There are some scenes in this book that work really, really well. It was another great installment in this series, and I look forward to getting to the third book as soon as I can get my hands on it. Lehane makes this whole machine work buy his wit, sarcasm and sense of pacing.

This book was originally pulped in 1997, but Geek 1 is just now getting around to reading it, cause in 97, he was trying to survive pre-calculus. I am trying to visit the new releases in my library, so I can get some more timely reviews thrown up on the sight. But you know how it is, only two eyes and all. Currently I am reading Duma Key, and Fighter. I will post them when I'm through.

The End Of The World As We Know It.

In 2006, Cormac McCarthy pulped a book about the end times. However you want to label it and say how this comes to be, he leaves that to you, but what he spins on the pages is a story of suspense, survival, and of finding hope in a place void of it.

The Road's two characters are a son and a father. The father is attempting to survive any way he can, and he never lets the son lose hope.

The Road follows suit with minimal punctuation and without proper names. The characters have no names, much like the Clint Eastwood character in the 70's. But this doesn't make them any less real or tangible. At the end of the novel, you feel like you have walked through the apocalypse with them.

This is not a horror book, but it does have some horrific scenes in it. I think what works the best, with horror, is when it is a subtle thing. One scene, in The Road, the two characters come across something terrible. This terribleness is not described in graphic detail, but the reader is given just enough to realize what is happening, and to realize the peril that the two protagonists are in. This is a good lesson to many of writers: sometimes the imagination can scare a person better than any printed word.

This Road is a quick read. It's not long and it isn't supposed to be. Everything that is in it is for a purpose, and there is no filler. At no point, in reading The Road, do you think: we're just wasting time here. Ever second is stacked with story, and every page filled with what it totally and completely necessary.

There's a reason why Cormac McCarthy is considered one of the best author's of this generation. His story weaving is something to breathe in deeply. The Road is a great start if you haven't read McCarthy before.

The Road was the 2007's winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

"A Drink Before The War", by Dennis Lehane

Recently saw Gone Baby Gone in the theaters. Me and Mrs. Geek were the only ones there. Unfortunately not many people saw this great movie. It's now out on DVD, as of this past week.

It was a difficult film to swallow, dealing with heavy issues, and some seriously disturbing images. However, the characters stood out above all the rest. These two private dicks had to face some serious questions of integrity, and in the end, didn't waver, no matter the consequences of the choice.

When I heard that Gone Baby Gone was actually adapted from a series, (out of the literary loop, I know) I bought the first of the series and digested it with vigor.

"A Drink Before The War" is the first novel by Dennis Lehane. It was originally pulped in 94, and it won the Seamus award for best first novel.

Is the book perfect? No. It is rough around particular edges, but the banter and storyline of the characters surpasses any faults that a first time author may have. In fact, to be honest, I didn't even think of the "faults" until they were brought up to me by professional critics, so take that for what its worth.

This book was difficult to stop reading. There is a certain danger that the author brought to his characters that kept you from skimping over any pages, because at any time, someone could get seriously busted up or dead. And that's how the action comes when it does, fast and nasty.

In the end, this book's central running theme has to do with abuse, and the avenues and tributaries of those avenues that can run off a life that has been abused. Good, bad and uglier. Now, Lehane doesn't glory in the abuse, and he doesn't do it in way that the reader feels like the victims are being exploited. But the abuse is there, black and white, and it can make the reader cringe when it shows up later in the book. (And I was a child abuse investigator and now work in a field that filters through child abuse cases).

This book was a great read. I am glad I "discovered" this series. I've already started "Darkness, Take My Hand", and I will be posting thoughts about that once I am through.

This is not a book that you can find easy at your Half Priced Books. It's probably at most of your brick and mortar stores, but I found it used off of Amazon.com, here.