Customer Reviews

Act of Fear

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'Act of Fear' by Dennis Lynds, under pseudonym Michael Collins, has been described as an historically important break from the hard-boiled tradition for its focus on the contemplations of the protagonist.

The novel introduces series character Dan Fortune, a one-armed detective who is hired by a young client for a $50 fee to find a missing friend. Fortune is a committed crusader who persists in searching for the missing young man, even after threats, beatings, and more murders.

My enjoyment of this novel hugely fell short of expectations. Hopefully stating my specific issues will help you decide is this work is the best introduction for you to the work of Michael Collins.

1) Fortune is extremely introspective and constantly editorializing. Fortune's mental ramblings strike this reader as excessive, wordy, and trite. By the second half of the novel, you are tempted to skip more sentences than you read. John D. MacDonald could sometimes irritate with the same tendency in the Travis McGee novels, but McGee's asides were more eloquent and less frequent.

2) There is a dulling detachment in this work that undercuts its compelling plot line. The author oftentimes 'states' rather than 'shows.' For example, the author has Fortune state "I was worried" rather than having Fortune describe his particular bodily experience of apprehension and fear. This type of statement rather than illustration with specifics reduces impact and immediacy.

Fortune often diminishes momentum by trying to explain characters' specific actions with hazy sociological generalities. I felt like shouting "Not again!" when additional editorializing was introduced by sentences like "Women have their own values." and "We think about ourselves." An editor could have created a more compelling adventure by having Fortune talk less to himself and interact more with the external world.

The explicit theme in this Fortune novel is "Luck; I don't care what you call it, how you explain it, how you think it operates psychologically. It is part of life." Get it...luck, Fortune?

Bottom Line: Fortune is a decent enough PI who takes on an interesting case. However, he tells you more - much more - than you want to know about his sociological reflections.

A Better Option: I recommend the collections the short stories by Michael Collins, frequently available on Amazon as used books. Several of his short stories had appeared in "Best Crime & Mystery Stories of the Year."