Jul 20 2008
Takeover
From the fine folks at Amazon Vine, I received an advance copy of Takeover, by Lisa Black. Black is a forensic scientist, as is Theresa MacLean, the protagonist of Black’s debut novel. It isn’t a bad effort, but not a lot of meat there. The majority of the action–and I use that term loosely–takes place during a hostage situation. Rather than the expected suspense-building give and take, this just goes slowly downhill. Foolish choices are made. Mistakes are made. Though, all the while, apparently, our CSI is solving the case in her head. In fairness, the clues are there for the grasping, but the delicious tension of a first-rate thriller is not.
As a side note, my 12-year-old son is taking a summer school class in forensics. When I was a sixth grader, we made little snakes out of clay and coiled them into tiny, useless pots to present to our parents. So far he’s learned how to analyze blood spatter and hair and fiber evidence–how cool is that? Years from now he may not want to make a career of forensic science, but I know we’ll never watch an episode of CSI the same way again!
