I meant to write just a few quick words as I have done previously...but then it morphed into the longer piece below. This book was a difficult for me.
Not Even Past - Dave White
I am fan of Dave White's first two Jackson Donne books, When One Man Dies and the truly exceptional The Evil that Men Do. Gritty and urban with an every-man quality that got across the wide landscape of New Jersey without screaming Born to Run in your face. They are solid P.I. books and if nothing else I encourage you dig those out. They are great reads. He followed that up with a standalone ebook, Witness to Death, a book that I was delighted to find I had been burbled for in his long in waiting follow up Not Even Past. As a quick side note I got the first two books signed by Dave White at the Baltimore Bouchercon. He mentioned his next book would be awhile. I remember thinking... What eighteen months? Two years?
No, no, seven years later.
We are reintroduced to Jackson Donne, an in his 30's college student who has left the private investigation business in his past. As the book opens he receives an email containing a video of his dead former fiance now very much alive but held captive. And it is off to the races.
It is a wizz-bang start to be sure, but I'll be honest it suffered for me because I flat out did not remember the long dead long ex from the previous books. And while a wonderful creation I don't remember much about Jackson either. I spent a lot of the book battling my own memory of Jackson as a recovering drunk, recovering drug addicted ex-cop p.i. Seven years will do that.
I wondered if in fact something was missing, as if an opening chapter had been cut in the interest of narrative expediency. I can certainly understand the allure it would have for an author because for as much as the story puts Jackson 'on tilt' so is the reader. I am sure we could all write an expansive list of books where we wished the author had just dropped the first fifty pages and got on with it.
However, here I certainly needed a minute to be reintroduced to old friends before we are hurtled along for the next 275 pages. I was always a step behind after the opening here. Constantly wondering what was going? Who are talking too?
I got my bearings eventually and was reminded why I like Dave White's books so much. Believable characters, Evocative settings. Jackson is lived in and broken. His former cop partner turned nemesis is a hollowed shell of a human. And both these guys are lost in the slowly putrefied corruption of New Jersey. The end is unexpected but not all that displeasing slap in the face even if it is more Duane Swiercynski than Dave White. I am excited to see where it goes next.
Not Even Past - Dave White
I am fan of Dave White's first two Jackson Donne books, When One Man Dies and the truly exceptional The Evil that Men Do. Gritty and urban with an every-man quality that got across the wide landscape of New Jersey without screaming Born to Run in your face. They are solid P.I. books and if nothing else I encourage you dig those out. They are great reads. He followed that up with a standalone ebook, Witness to Death, a book that I was delighted to find I had been burbled for in his long in waiting follow up Not Even Past. As a quick side note I got the first two books signed by Dave White at the Baltimore Bouchercon. He mentioned his next book would be awhile. I remember thinking... What eighteen months? Two years?
No, no, seven years later.
We are reintroduced to Jackson Donne, an in his 30's college student who has left the private investigation business in his past. As the book opens he receives an email containing a video of his dead former fiance now very much alive but held captive. And it is off to the races.
It is a wizz-bang start to be sure, but I'll be honest it suffered for me because I flat out did not remember the long dead long ex from the previous books. And while a wonderful creation I don't remember much about Jackson either. I spent a lot of the book battling my own memory of Jackson as a recovering drunk, recovering drug addicted ex-cop p.i. Seven years will do that.
I wondered if in fact something was missing, as if an opening chapter had been cut in the interest of narrative expediency. I can certainly understand the allure it would have for an author because for as much as the story puts Jackson 'on tilt' so is the reader. I am sure we could all write an expansive list of books where we wished the author had just dropped the first fifty pages and got on with it.
However, here I certainly needed a minute to be reintroduced to old friends before we are hurtled along for the next 275 pages. I was always a step behind after the opening here. Constantly wondering what was going? Who are talking too?
I got my bearings eventually and was reminded why I like Dave White's books so much. Believable characters, Evocative settings. Jackson is lived in and broken. His former cop partner turned nemesis is a hollowed shell of a human. And both these guys are lost in the slowly putrefied corruption of New Jersey. The end is unexpected but not all that displeasing slap in the face even if it is more Duane Swiercynski than Dave White. I am excited to see where it goes next.
Comments