Where Will Has Some Crazy Luck

The Righteous Men by Sam Bourne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Decently entertaining. Pretty solid C. (IMO, obviously. Thrillers are sometimes exactly my thing, but usually are not. This is right in the middle.) So--not a favorite, but enjoyable enough to look at other books by this author.

I found this slow and vague for the first half, but not horribly so. I kept going. In part, for maybe 100 pages, it's about a journalist having a small lucky streak with unexpectedly well-received stories. Then it's about his wife being abducted and his attempt to find her on his own. That's most of the middle. He follows some clues; he gets beaten up and tortured; he reaches out to people for help; he still doesn't know what's going on. Then, maybe 2/3 of the way through, it becomes bigger than just a kidnapping--and that's when it become quite a bit more interesting. There are religious, spiritual, even supernatural aspects to events that he has become dimly aware of, and we are finally drawn into what I think should have been the center of the plot from the first page.

But that's just one reader's opinion. :)

It's written in a way that is meant to be believable despite the supernatural implications, which in a way are left up to the reader to make up their mind about--is it real? Or is it just belief? I think that part works. However, the number of coincidences in this stack up a bit, and it hurt more than it helped. I would explain more, except that they include serious spoilers, worse than what I've revealed above. IMO, none of the coincidences are necessary for the plot--well, maybe just one, the one that gets him involved--and I feel like a little revision would have improved the story. The many details he basically stumbles onto and the unexpected personal connections to the ancient global mystery at the heart of the story make for interesting moments, maybe, but they're too unlikely to leave the reader easy about it. If the author was committed to the coincidences, some serious lamp-shading would have helped my disbelief a little.

But overall, it's a decent thriller with some scattered exciting scenes, good prose throughout, and a few likable characters that you can root for. TBH, I was prepared to enjoy this novel because it's one of a dozen or so books I held on to from my brother's collection after he died, so I'm glad that it was pretty good in the end, despite my criticisms.

So, Jon, I don't know for sure whether you read this one, or whether you liked it if you did, but I thought it was okay. Maybe I'll read one of those westerns next. Point me to a good one. :)

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