Customer Reviews

An Absence of Light

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Marcus Graver has his hands full from the very beginning in this international intrigue thriller. Exceptionally well written. You buy into the day by day action and worries of our detective Graver. Very readable and almost impossible to put down. Buy it, read it, enjoy!!

The premise of the book was compelling, but the book itself left a lot to be desired. There was zero action, but a heck of a lot of telling the reader what had happened and how everybody and his brother felt about it. Of course, the subject matter (stealing "information" and somehow becoming a Big Kahuna Bad Guy by doing it) doesn't lend itself to an action-packed thriller. You could hardly call it a psychological thriller either, as there wasn't any suspense in the story at all. Just a very, very, VERY long recitation of the forces of good and evil battling themselves to the death with . . . uh, well, "information."

And here's the <yawn> crux of it: the good guys looked like a bunch of no-name, no-talent technophobic amateurs. Even in the mid-1990s there were cellphones, digital cameras, and the Internet, yet Lindsey is still having his characters rushing to a pay phone and perusing surveillance photos 12 hours later because they had to be developed and printed. The whole book (and there was a LOT of it) was a little like watching the progress bar of a very long install over a 1200-baud modem.

This book is classic Lindsey, it's fast paced and a taunt thriller. I am a huge fan of his work and even though, I would not say this is his best work, it is still better than the best work of Cornwell or Connelly. David Lindsey is a master of the thriller, I know of no writer today who can pace a thriller better than Lindsey, I can assure you that if you read this book you will want to read all his other books, he is consistantly good, which is notable for a writer of thrillers. I have read all of his books and periodically go back and reread them. I enjoy most of Patrica Cornwell's Scarpetta books and I like Grisham and Connelly, but Lindsey is in another league altogether. If you love the thriller and relish great writing then you will not be disappointed in this book. Though I recommend all of Mr. Lindsey's books, my favorites are A Cold Mind, Mercy, Requiem for a Glass Heart, In the Lake of the Moon, and Face of the Assassin.

I enbjoyed this book and felt it stimulating! I was very moved by the authors work! It rates up there as agood one....almost as good as "Going Too Far", by that great up and coming author Steven Gardner

I was enthralled with David Lindsey's "Mercy", so I decided to download this book to my Kindle. The style of writing was a little more wordy than "Mercy", but what really surprised me was the complete lack of proof-reading! Every sentence that ended with a word ending with a "t", had no period after it. The next word was just capitalized. Words were misspelled, quotation marks were incorrect, and all this made it very difficult to read with any speed. This happened on 90% of the pages. DID NO ONE ELSE NOTICE THIS???? All my other downloaded books have been fine, as was the regular copy of "Mercy". Please notify me when this has been corrected as I was only half way finished with the book and I would like to know what happens! Thank you.

Now that I am finished with this novel and have moved on to my next read, I am having a hard time remembering much about David Lindsey's "An Absence of Light". Being a big fan of concise writing styles, such as Michael Crichton and Greg Iles, I found Lindsey's overly descriptive style distracting, particularly since the prose was often irrelevant to the action. If you are a fan of very wordy authors, I would direct you to someone like a Pat Conroy (of Prince of Tides fame), who despite being extremely descriptive and downright wordy, does it extremely well.

I wouldn't describe it as a bad book or a horrible read, just an extremely ambivalent one.

Reading this book reminds me of my childhood dreams in Ireland.