Tag Archives: Ridley Pearson

Fiction, Religion

‘White Bone,’ by Ridley Pearson

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White Bone

I’m a fan of Ridley Pearson’s Lou Boldt police procedurals. But he seems to be easing off on Lou these days, which is understandable considering Lou’s age. Instead he’s moving into the currently hotter genre of the international thriller, with his Risk Agent novels starring John Knox and Grace Chu. They are contractors who do occasional work for Rutherford Risk, a private agency specializing in hostage negotiation and extraction. I liked the first book, so I bought this second one, White Bone.

The title is a reference to elephant ivory. In this story, Grace, a talented computer technician, is sent to Kenya to look into the records behind a spectacular – and cruel – crime, where precious vaccine was stolen and replaced with a dangerous substitute, resulting in many deaths. Suddenly she drops off the grid altogether, and John Knox – somewhat to his own surprise – is concerned enough to leave his mentally disabled brother, his only family and the center of his life, at home while he goes to Africa to search for her, clashing both with the police and with ruthless animal poachers.

What follows is a white knuckle adventure story. While John runs down slender leads with increasing desperation, Grace is forced to revert to her most primitive instincts in order to survive in a suddenly prehistoric environment.

The book delivered on its promises of suspense and adventure. I wasn’t enamored of it, myself, because wilderness survival stories aren’t a flavor of literature for which I have a lot of taste. But people who like that sort of thing will find Grace’s survival story riveting. I’ll admit I was also troubled a little by some of the other story elements. The book is pretty solidly in favor of shooting poachers on sight, an idea that bothers me because it puts animals before humans (though I probably wouldn’t be as troubled by Old West ranchers hanging rustlers, so that may be prejudice on my part). Also, there is a minor subplot involving a group of hostages, and no sympathy whatever is expended on them.

But White Bone is a well done, exciting thriller that will probably please many readers more than it pleased me. And I’ll read the next book in the series. Cautions for the sorts of things you’d expect.

Fiction, Reviews

The Risk Agent novels, by Ridley Pearson

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Recently I reviewed a couple of Ridley Pearson’s Lou Boldt novels, part of a continuing series I enjoy and watch for. I went on to try out another series of Pearson’s, the Risk Agent novels, which are very different stories, though equally well told. Though less to my taste.

The Risk Agent stories have two main characters. One is John Knox (interesting choice of name). John is a former commando, now running an import/export business. He makes good money, but he needs a lot of money, because his younger brother Tommie, whose guardian he is, suffers from an autistic-type disorder. Tommie functions well with good care, but such care is expensive. So John regularly takes side jobs with Rutherford Risk, an international private security firm. He was recruited as a risk agent by an old military friend.

The other main character is Grace Chu, formerly of the Chinese army. She is beautiful (of course), trained in martial arts, and a computer expert. She has a troubled relationship with her family, who do not approve of her career or her wish to marry a man of whom they do not approve.

John and Grace meet in The Risk Agent, in which they deal with a hostage situation in Shanghai. In an adventure they barely survive, they learn to like and trust each other, though they won’t admit to their mutual attraction.

In Choke Point they are sent to Amsterdam to deal with a child labor racket. And in The Red Room they are sent to Istanbul on a strange, off-the-books mission that makes no sense to them and leaves them on the run without support.

There’s an interesting character arc in the Risk Agent books. It’s not only the growing awareness of mutual attraction between the two main characters, but a hard fact about themselves that John already knows and Grace begins to learn. They are both adrenaline junkies, danger addicts. John tells himself he does his risk agent work for Tommie’s sake, but in his clearer moments he can see that his main motivation is his need to live as intensely as he did when he was in combat. If he gets himself killed, Tommie will be left all alone. And Grace discovers that she’s becoming exactly the same.

This intensity is the reason why, although I liked the Risk Agent books well enough, I still prefer the Lou Boldt stories. The level of stress achieved and maintained in these books is so cinematically high – and so generally unrelieved – that it kind of wore me out. I need a few breaks in my action stories, some down time and comic relief.

Still, I think the Risk Agent books will work very well for people who like their action poured straight. I can see them being turned into action movies, and very successful ones.

Cautions for the usual things – language, adult situations, and violence. But not bad by contemporary standards.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Undercurrents’ and ‘The Body of David Hayes,’ by Ridley Pearson

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As you’ve probably discerned from my reviews, I continue to read for pleasure even as I toil for my master’s degree. I don’t think I’d keep my sanity if I couldn’t take fiction breaks from the textbooks.

So, recently, casting about for something new to read, I decided to check out one of my consistently favorite authors, Ridley Pearson. I’ve always enjoyed his Lou Boldt police procedurals, but I discovered I’d never read the very first in the series, Undercurrents. And then I got the most recent novel in the series, The Body of David Hayes, which is closely related though separated in time.

At the beginning of Undercurrents, we find Detective Sergeant Lou Boldt of the Seattle Police Department, never a lighthearted guy in the best of times, in a particularly bad spot. He recently closed a serial killer case, and the accused murderer was himself murdered by a family member of a victim. But now he’s called back from a conference in Los Angeles, summoned by the news that there’s been another murder. They got the wrong guy.

Not only that, his marriage is falling apart. He has personally observed his wife meeting another man at a hotel. He’s moved out, and is considering divorcing her.

The story is as much about Lou’s struggle to keep his sanity as about his conflict with the serial killer, a smart and devious one who has singled Lou out as his police contact and personal foil. As Lou tries to function on too little sleep, too little food, and too much coffee, he tries to deal with his attraction to a beautiful police psychologist, and is brought face to face with his own culpability in the collapse of his marriage. When he truly achieves self-knowledge on that issue, it’s in terms that will please almost every Christian reader.

The Body of David Hayes picks up on a thread from that first book. David Hayes, a banker, was a colleague of Boldt’s wife and the man with whom she had the affair. He was later convicted of cyber-embezzlement and sentenced to prison. But now he’s been released early, only to be kidnapped and beaten. There’s more to his crime than anyone knew, and some very dangerous people are looking hard for the money David Hayes stole and hid in the bank’s own records. Lou is forced to bring his wife into the investigation, and old wounds get opened.

Frankly, The Body of David Hayes was above my head in terms of plot. The schemes of criminals and police (not all of whom may be honest) are so convoluted that I just lost track at certain points. But, as you may have noticed, plot isn’t my main concern in my reading. What I love is the characters Pearson creates — believable, sympathetic (in most cases), and grounded in a moral universe.

Both books recommended. Adult themes and language are relatively mild.