The Mighty Quinn by Paula R. Stiles

Quinn Bolcan is a small-time ex-criminal who has the ability to drain energy from things, be they physical or magical. This talent proves to be beneficial (defusing bombs) and deadly (body heat loss can lead to frostbite). When the story opens, Quinn is unaware of his ability but, over the course of the novel, learns how to control it. Needing to get out of town (Vancouver) after a pot farm raid, he takes on the role of courier. His lawyer has a package that needs to be delivered to Montreal and it "isn't the kind you want to send by Fedex."

While the story could've been about Quinn's cross-country trip (Canada is big and interesting enough), Stiles only details two stops: a bar in the Rockies where Quinn has a run-in with a supernatural biker gang and the delivery of the package in Montreal. They do factor into the novel later on though. The real action happens across the border in Vermont where Quinn accidentally defuses a nuke. The rest of the novel covers Quinn's reluctant assistance to DHS agent Nan Carreira's investigation of the terrorists who set up the bomb in the first place.

Ok, so it's not the best cover. I've seen far worse since I came on board here at the New Podler. I believe that it's meant to convey the swarm of foes that Quinn faces, though a better cover might've been one of him draining the magic out of a zombie or holding a bomb in his hands as he's about to drain it. But I digress.

The story is told in multiple POV's, which enable Stiles to develop her characters. Stiles starts with Quinn's story, told in first person, and then switches to third person to relate Agent Carreira's encounters, along with those of the villains. Considering that a large chunk of the action takes place away from Quinn, this is essential as we'd miss the scheming of the villains, who would otherwise be two-dimensional. Quinn is the strongest, and most likable. We're privy to his thoughts and his wry sense of humor. It's through him that Stiles conveys her mastery of imagery (smells too!).

Stiles could be accused of going overboard with the supernatural stuff. There are lycanthropes, vampires, ghouls, sorcerers, zombies, demons, fairies, and more. There are some naturally occurring events too which, for me, were a bit over the top. These are explained as being a side effect of Quinn's energy draining powers, but I felt this avenue was left unresolved, particularly how he deals with these events.

As for the technicals, the manuscript is fairly well-edited, but it definitely could've used an extra pair of eyes as a few passages fell through the cracks. For example, refer back to the first paragraph of this review. I quoted a passage from the story where Quinn is talking to his lawyer about the package. It says "Fedex" but the proper name for the company is "FedEx".

The Mighty Quinn is an entertaining read. Its titular character carries the story through a gauntlet of supernatural entities and is almost as surprised as we are that he came out the other side. While Stiles is adept at her use of imagery and developing her protagonist, some unresolved elements lead me to think she may have bit off more than she could chew by cramming too much into one novel.

The Mighty Quinn is available in print and on the Kindle. For more information, check out the author's website.

Hell and Gone by Henry Brown

<—Original cover on the left. New cover on the right. —> Just looking at the covers, which book would you rather buy? Presented as a lesson to indie authors on the importance of investing in one's book covers.

Veteran's Day was yesterday (Thank you to all who served). In light of that, Hell and Gone seemed like an appropriate book to review.

The plot is pretty straightforward: Muslim terrorists have a nuclear bomb. The CIA recruits a dirty baker's dozen of veterans and mercenaries to neutralize the threat. There are only a few questions: "Will they succeed?", "How high will the body count be?" and "Who's going home in a body bag?" Instead, Brown focuses his creative energy on the characters and the action scenes.

In an action thriller it would be very easy for the characters to resemble cardboard props waiting their turn to become cannon fodder, but Brown doesn't go that route. Each of his characters has a story and Brown gives each one the time to tell it, although with the sheer number present some get more time than others. And they're a diverse, fractious lot. Yes, they're all dark-skinned (Caucasians would be a dead giveaway in the Sudan, where the action takes place) ex-military or mercenaries loaded up with testosterone, but the similarities end there. They're distinct individuals with their own sets of skills and shortcomings. They're men, not superheroes. You'll hate Mai for his arrogance and bigotry, but you'll admire Scarred Wolf's ability to execute his bloody job with honor and integrity.

The villains in Hell and Gone are truly evil. I don't say that lightly. The manipulation that the Jihadist leader, Ali, and his Chinese consultant, Chin, put fifteen-year old Bassam through is nothing short of diabolical. The scary part is, none of it comes across as far-fetched.

Brown, a veteran himself, uses his characters to address a range of issues. He explores veteran alienation through several men. We get to see how each dealt with feeling disconnected from friends, family and country once they were “back in the World.” There's also the matter of American foreign policy. At his weakest point, Brown's characters sound like they're reading neocon talking points from the back of a cereal box. But at his best, he presents an intelligent examination of our relationship to Israel and the Middle East. You'll wish our leaders would have such a frank discussion with all the facts, rather than dishing out the rhetoric.

The battle scenes are meticulously detailed. It wouldn't surprise me if Brown built scale models of the locales in his basement so that he could properly choreograph each step and shot. He'll have vets and military aficionados nodding their heads as he relates the pros and cons of various weapons down to their milspecs. Meanwhile, civvies will run to Wikipedia to look up the old planes that have been out-of-service in the Western World for decades. But he doesn't do it to impress anyone, he does it to stay true to his characters and himself.

While the dialogue is great, I do have gripes. For a bunch of leathernecks, they never curse! "Shit" doesn't appear until three quarters of the way through the book. "Damned" has been replaced by "doomed." Every variation of profanity involving "dick" has been replaced by "Richard." For example, "limp Richard" and "Richard head." And there isn't a single F-bomb. This behavior is never explained and strikes me as disingenuous.

As for the technicals, a few homophones slipped through the cracks. There are a few point-of-view shifts that might violate some rule somewhere, but honestly they don't disorient the reader at all. Towards the end of the final battle, the writing breaks down into short, choppy sentences, which impart the feel of a grocery list of action rather than a flowing narrative.

Overall, Hell and Gone is a military thriller that delivers the goods on the action, has vivid, realistic characters who interact with great dialogue, and presents some food for thought. If enough people chew on it, maybe the all too plausible scenario presented here will remain fiction, assuming it hasn't happened already.

Hell and Gone is available in print from Amazon and in several eBook formats from Smashwords. Free samples are available through the author's website and at Smashwords.

Book review: The Caliphate by Andre Le Gallo

Reviewed for The New Podler Review of Books by David Drazul.

Steve Church, an American businessman, is visiting Dr. Ted Coogan, a friend of his father's, in Paris before a business trip to Morocco. Coogan and Steve's father were both in the CIA together. Although both are retired, Steve feels that Coogan would prove to be a great resource for the Arab world. Unknown to Steve at the time, Coogan is part of a research team charged with verifying the authenticity of a recently recovered copy of the Qur'an that differs from the established text. His work is considered blasphemous by many Muslims. As such, Coogan's home is ransacked and Coogan himself is attacked while away in Germany. Steve is asked to pick up Coogan at the airport, and the two are photographed together by a reporter.

This one photograph renders Steve guilty through association with Coogan. The Salafists, the organization behind the attacks on Coogan, assume that Steve is working with him and a CIA spy. They are led by Tariq al Khalil, who Steve knows of from graduate school. Tariq's organization seeks to restore the Caliphate, the political unification of all Muslims that, at its height, stretched from Spain to Pakistan. Tariq is willing to use any means necessary to accomplish his goal and any infidels who would undermine him must die.

Steve is ultimately recruited by the CIA and Mr. Le Gallo, a former CIA agent himself, introduces us to a far less glamorous organization than what we see in the movies. After his training, Steve is hampered by bean counters from the bureaucratic wing back home while being forced to recruit locals in the field to assist him with intelligence gathering.

From Paris to Morocco and from Mali to Israel, Steve and Tariq's paths cross time and time again. And as each grows more familiar with the other, so too does their enmity. I won't spoil the story's end, but there's a heated argument between the two men as they make the case for their respective causes. The verbal combat was, for me, more powerful than the action scenes.

Mr. Le Gallo draws upon his vast experience to show us not only what it's like to be a CIA operative but the villains he faced. 9/11 opened our eyes to the lengths that Islamic extremists will go to in order to achieve their objective. Mr. Le Gallo's terrorists are cut from that very same cloth. What's more, he brings the reader into the minds of the men that make up these organizations. While al Khalil is a megalomaniac, the rest of the men are far from being monolithic followers. Mr. Le Gallo reveals their conflicted psyches as they struggle to balance their conscience with the Salafist objectives.

My one complaint, and it's a minor one, is that the dialogue doesn't ring true at times. Character A would ask character B a series of questions all at once and continue talking without letting character B answer them. Finally, character B would be allowed to answer the questions in the order they were asked and then run on at length as well. It was as if they were conducting multiple conversation threads at once.

Mr. Le Gallo stated in the Acknowledgments for the book that "a novel allows the author to entertain as well as educate." I felt that sometimes he may have gone a bit too far in the education department. A few times a character would launch into an educational segment that may as well have started with "Did you know..." While some of the information was pertinent to the story, in a few instances it seemed more documentary than drama.

Overall, The Caliphate is an excellent story of international espionage and a welcome addition to the genre from someone who lived it. While we can rest easy that the more speculative elements are just fiction, the fact remains that the people Mr. Le Gallo writes about are very real, some frightfully so.

The book was (originally) published by Dorchester Publications and is available from them and Amazon.

Author site is at andrelegallo.com.

Update 12/10/15: The book has a new publisher, and Mr. Le Gallo's website is back.