Book Review

By Derryll White

Holm, Chris (2016). Red Right Hand.

You’re one microscopic cog

In his catastrophic plan

Designed and directed by

His red right hand.

                                                            – Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds

There is a lot going on in this novel, a lot of characters to balance, sort and keep clear. Chris Holm is stronger on action than on character development, which may account for some of the difficulty readers may have.

Holm addresses at length the ways the United States government has contracted out its security and homeland safety to the likes of Dick Cheney and Blackwater (or Academi now). Does that ring a George Bush bell?

Mike Hendricks is an interesting anti-hero, but he would have been even more interesting with more development. And Rosalind Cameron deserves a little better treatment than Holm cedes to her.

In the end there are so many authors working hard to find a hold in the suspense/action market that I think Chris Holm needs to do some more work. Not much here, including the writing, is really memorable.

“No man can step into the same river twice, for it is not the same river – and he is not the same man.” — Heraclitus.

********

Excerpt from the novel:

LOSS – When the towers fell, they took some secret part of him with them – something no new construction, no matter how ambitious, could replace. In Frank’s eyes, the New York landscape was a key that no longer fit. What it once opened inside him never would again.

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.  When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

Article Share