2.0 out of 5 stars
Dirty Mitch, November 11, 2010
Dirty Harry meets Robocop ... or more accurately, Techno-Cop, armed with an infallible lie detector, a laser pistol, a state-of-the-art armored vest, and a new Honda skimmer with a laser cannon mounted on the hood. Yet Mitch Helwig might as well be a robot for all the humanity he's able to muster. Helwig is a predictable vigilante cop: a self-appointed avenger, his certainty that he is dispensing "justice" strengthened by the supposedly infallible lie detector. True to vigilante form, Helwig is self-righteous, hypocritical, and lacks even a gram of introspection: murdering people because they deserve it, without benefit of trial or due process, doesn't seem to Helwig to be at all inconsistent with his duty to uphold the law. If Helwig had given any thought to the absurdity of his position (it's okay to murder if you have a good reason to do it), I would have given this novel a better rating, but Helwig is blind to reason. That blindness might have made him an interesting character if Green had explored it; instead, Green wrote an action novel that ascribes the standard motivation to Helwig's vengeance: someone killed Helwig's partner, and now someone's gotta pay. Yawn.
Green tells Helwig's tired story in cliché-ridden prose. The action scenes are dull. The novel's sex scenes would read like contributions to Penthouse Forum except that they're written with less literary style. Green presents a stereotypically simplistic view of a criminal justice system where "slimeball" lawyers exploit the mistakes of honest law enforcement officers to allow criminals to run free. To create sympathy for Helwig's cause, Green invents a gangster outlaw who is a veritable cartoon: his diversified criminal enterprise includes a warehouse that stores five tons of cocaine and hundreds of stolen laser guns; he makes snuff films and then sells the victims' body parts on the black market; and, of course, he traffics in children and makes child porn. The reader is apparently to conclude that it's fine for Helwig to kill this mythical fiend and to cause enough property destruction to keep Toronto's fire department working overtime. Really, the whole thing is silly, unimaginative, and not written well enough to work either as science fiction or as a thriller. I would recommend this only for die-hard fans of vigilante fiction.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
