Barry Ergang is back this week
with another all new review. For the full list of reading suggestions,
check out Todd Mason’s Sweet
Freedom blog.
15 SECONDS (2012)
by Andrew Gross
Reviewed by Barry
Ergang
The premise is intriguing: successful plastic surgeon Dr.
Henry Steadman (who, we eventually learn, has his share of emotional baggage) is
pulled over by a cop for a minor traffic violation, a cop who refuses to listen
to Steadman's side of events. Steadman has flown from Ft. Lauderdale , Florida Jacksonville
The police persist in questioning him, making additional
accusations, and denying his protests of innocence of their various charges
until they finally cease and depart—all except the one who initially pulled him
over. This one tells him, "I'm going to write you up a warning...Just take
a seat back in your car." Steadman complies, and a moment later another
car pulls up alongside the police vehicle. Steadman hears two loud pops, after
which the car takes off. When he gets out and looks into the police vehicle, he
sees that the cop is dead from gunshot wounds.
When he recovers from the shock of both the cop's murder and
the realization that he'll be the prime suspect, Steadman sets off after the
murderer's car and kicks the rest of the novel into play. Besides Steadman,
whose narrative is in the first person, we follow those in the third person of
a "plucky" female cop (one with baggage), and the villain of the
piece (who also has baggage—are you sensing a trend yet?).
In addition to trying to save himself and prove his
innocence, Steadman must also save the greatest love of his life in what turns
out to be a "sinister scheme" with him as the primary target.
Yes, it's all quite formulaic, and written and structured in
a manner calculated to generate page-turning suspense. The problem—for this
reader, at least—was the delivery, particularly the author's predilection for
depicting his characters' emotional reactions to events via impossible bodily responses.
When he discovers the cop has been murdered, Steadman tells us, "My heart
surged into fifth gear." When circumstances put him close to one of the
cops who interrogated him, he says, "My heart almost clawed its way up my
throat as I vividly recalled what he had warned me of if our paths ever crossed
again." Three paragraphs later: "My heart clawed its way up my
throat."
Several chapters later: "I felt the sweats come over me
and my insides slowly clawed their way up my throat." A good deal further
on: "Carrie closed her eyes and let out a breath she'd been holding in for
hours."
Carrie, poor oxygen-bereft baby, suffers still further: "She
saw whom the bill was made out to, and her stomach fell like a ten-ton weight hurled
off a cliff." Four paragraphs later: "Her breath felt cut in
half." Somewhere along the way we also learn, "Her heart
sputtered."
One of the most unintentionally comical moments, due to poor
editing, occurs when Steadman comes upon a shed in a wooded area and gives us
this: "My heart started to pound. It had a slanted roof and one window and
what looked like a storage hut attached to it...."
Hmm...Did it make storing gardening tools and a lawn mower
among the aorta and valves vexatious?
As you have doubtlessly surmised by now, 15 Seconds
is not, in my estimation, a stellar example of a thriller. Yes, it will keep
many readers turning the pages, but they'll have to forgive a predictable and
formulaic approach while doing so, along with tolerating a great many lame
passages that can render the intended drama fatuous. I've read books aimed at
children and young adults whose prose is far more artful and evocative.
If the silliness described isn't a turnoff for some readers,
the use of raw street language might be.
© 2019 Barry Ergang
Some of Derringer winner Barry Ergang's work can be found at
Amazon and Smashwords.
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