Customer Reviews

Bird's-Eye View: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As a mystery author with my debut novel in its initial release, I genuinely enjoyed J.F. Freedman's tale of Fritz Tullis. Fritz is a man who was born on third base and who is in danger of getting picked off before he scores. His roots are as establishment as they can get. His mother is a Maryland patrician, and he was, until he had an affair with the wrong woman, a respected history professor at the University of Texas. After losing his job, he returns to his family's Maryland estate, drinks too much, chases convenient skirts, and takes up birdwatching. He becomes fascinated with a whooping crane. One hungover morning, as he is searching for his favorite member of that endangered feathered species, he witnesses a murder on a neighboring airstrip. It turns out the airstrip is owned by an undersecretary of state with a checkered past. The victim turns out to be a Russian diplomat. Fritz decides something has to be done, and he finds his efforts assisted by a beautiful Harvard academic with a famous film star's name yet her own deep secrets. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW is an enjoyable read on many levels. I recommend it highly.

Freedman has six prior novels, but was unknown to us until a friend insisted we read "Bird's-Eye". We weren't sorry, as our author combines solid writing skills with the ability to capture our interest immediately and keep us turning pages in a hurry with mystery and suspense. Already in Chapter One, we meet our leading man, Fritz Tullis, but have no idea why this thirty-something high-achiever, from a land-owning family wealthy for generations, is living in a shack on his mother's property in the swampish backwoods of the lower Chesapeake Bay. He spends his days doping, drinking, and enjoying ready sex partners, with occasional forays into the swamp to photograph birds (hence the title) with long telephoto lenses. By chapter's end, his camera catches a murder on a nearby property with a private air strip from a concealed, on the water, vantage point no one would ever know about.

Tullis spends much of the first half of the story staying uninvolved - but as he learns more about the potential culprits, or at least the conspirators involved, he cannot resist doing the right thing (solving the crime) while seeking little help from the authorities, with whom he knew he would have little credibility. Meanwhile, another new lady friend takes just a little too much interest in both the birds, one of which is a rare whooping crane, as well as the murder mystery; and we readers get enough info to smell a rat much sooner than does Tullis. Corruption and politics soon enter the fray as an Assistant Secretary of State, James Roach (presumably no pun!) turns out to be the neighbor who owns the air strip. Along the way, another murder or two adds to the intrigue and the dangerous nature of the chase, with the action and affairs of the heart reaching crescendo pace by book's end.

Freedman develops a fine plot without engaging so many characters we lose track. The suspense is realistic, as are the players and their thoughts and feelings. In sum, we not only enjoyed this novel immensely but will seek out his earlier works soon. Enjoy!

Freedman's latest is a good edge of your seat thriller

When Fritz Tullis is fired from the University of Texas for having an affair with the wife of a prestigious donor, (It seems that every woman he meets, falls in love with him. Hmmmm.) he has nowhere to go but back to the estate of his family in southern Maryland. While living in a shack that's located on the estate, he partakes in his hobbies of drinking, smoking grass and photographing. While out in the swamp photographing his favorite secret pet-Ollie the whooping crane-he notices his neighbor's plane landing in a private airfield. Much to his surprise, he witnesses and photographs a cold-blooded murder. The victim turns out to be a Russian Senior Counselor. The property belongs to James Roach, an assistant Secretary of State. Eventually Fritz decides he should do something about this murder, or at least find out who's responsible. As Fritz soon learns, he's in way to deep.

One would think that Fritz is smart, but being a professor of history does not make him a good detective. He seems to lack the ability to read people well. His way with the ladies seems a little too lucky. Fritz also seems to carry a lot of emotion around with him. One wonders why.

The story moves at a brisk pace. With a couple of surprises and yet some predictable plotting, this was still a very good book. I look forward to your next one Mr. Freedman. Oh, by the way, a King Air is not a jet.

Highly recommended

My wife and I both liked this novel, and we're really not sure why anyone else wouldn't. The main character is slightly damaged goods, setting aside career and life's other ambitions, and hiding away in the boonies enroute to an undecided future. Not sure why that's apparently such a poor choice for a protagonist who is cast as an unlikely hero, but it did work for us. It's not realistic for all storybook heroes to be alpha male over-achievers who never take a step back to recover from their failures and disappointments.

I appreciated the author's brevity of language, and ability to make the characters accessible and real. The storyline kept me interested all the way through.

When I finished the book, I went looking for more by the same author. I was happy to add this one to my list of favorite authors.

Freedman wrote one of my favorite thrillers ever--Against the Wind, and several dynamite follow-ups. This is not one of them.

The basic plot elements are all great. Ordinary guy falls on hard times, too much alcohol, too much self-pity, too much self-absorbtion. Then a series of events, rooted in gun running in decades past, mixed with political intrigue, conspire to intrude into hero's neat little self-contained world.

The plot twists and turns; no one is quite who we thing he (and, most significantly, she) is. The story unfolds with Freedman's great writing, and the pages keep turning.

Two problems. First, the scenes between Maureen and Franz feel extremely forced, and even to the point of being long winded. Second, the story simply peters out at the end. We don't know if the bad guy gets away with it. We don't know if true love will out. We don't even know what happens to the birds.

I suspect that Freedman got bored with thrillers, and tried to do something more "literary". The title is an excellent double (triple, more?) entendre--it is by viewing his birds that Franz gets sucked in; but it is also by trying to live life from a bird's point of view--above it all, with no cares about the world--that Franz gets sucked deeper and deeper into trouble. Finally, the whole problem is caused by the fact that Ollie (our hero's whooping crane) is not where he belongs--several thousand miles from Texas, where he "belongs". This is also Franz' problem, who got lost in Texas, and ended up a few hundred feet away from Ollie in the Maryland swamps.

Good read, but not as good as the other Freedman's I've read.

Fritz Tullis has been exiled from academia after a passionate affair with the wrong man's wife. In a sharecropper's shack on the edge of a swamp he amuses himself fishing & photographing the abundant bird life until one dawn when a plane lands on an airstrip across the bay & he witnesses an argument that turns into murder.

This far from lovable ex-professor who seems to be able to get just about every female who comes within range into bed, gets caught up in a web of political intrigue, undercover surveillance & revenge.

Nothing earth-shaking - a solid armchair kind of thriller with an unexpected twist or two; a cast of interesting characters in a well-drawn landscape & a chance for redemption for both the hero & a wildlife sanctuary.

I love this book. Freedman puts the reader into the head of yet another otherwise inscrutable character who is fascinating in his predicament and complexity. While reading his books, I find myself wondering what the people in my life are really thinking -- and doing! The confluence of characters and events in Bird's-Eye View makes for a compelling story and a big-surprise ending you won't see coming. Worth the price of the trip.

Fritz Tullis was a successful professor at the University of Texas until he had an affair with the wrong (as in married) woman. He resigned while on leave of absence and is now living in a somewhat renovated sharecropper's shack on family property in southern Maryland. It's on the edge of a swamp where he fishes, photographs the many birds in the area and enjoys the solitude the place offers while he tries to get his head screwed on right.

One day while photographing the birds, he sees a small plane land across the water on the new neighbor's (James Roach) property. He witnesses a murder and vows to himself not to get involved. Then he learns the neighbor is the wealthy, shady assistant secretary of state. Fritz has been reckless most of his life and, against the advice of his lawyer friend, starts nosing into the life and misdeeds of Roach--to see that justice is done. He's soon in way over his head.

The story has a few twists and turns to keep your interest. And there's much more to the story than I've mentioned. This was my first experience with this author and there will be more.

Starts out slowly, with a lot of back-story, then picks up nicely. Fairly implausible characters and storyline, but, hey, it's pulp fiction. Throw in a little allegory with a lost whooping crane, dangle a few red herrings, mix in the usual sex and a bit of violence, and you have the recipe for a typical modern mystery novel. (Personally, I have to admit I enjoyed the protagonist's penchant for vice. Everytime he reached for another shot and a beer, I got kind of thirsty.)

One could almost use this as a study aid in a class for aspiring pulp novelists. Most of the standard devices for leading the reader are employed, but not to the point where one isn't aware of the manipulation. That's what keeps this from being a top rank story, yet at the same time it provides a useful guide for how to proceed. What always gets me about mysteries is how the main trick is to engage the reader with all sorts of misleading information, while at the same time planting some small clues as to what the denoument will be. In this case we are diverted for several hundred pages with the question of "is she, or isn't she?" Our flawed hero, meanwhile, stumbles in all the wrong directions, and the two or three paragraphs that contain the essential tip-offs are quickly forgotten. The very highest order of suspense novels will manage to fool us this way without our being aware of it. That doesn't happen here, but it's still interesting to see how well we've identified the author's intentions, and why. Not a bad way to kill an afternoon at the beach.

Although this is a suspense novel, J.F. Freedman departs from his usual field of legal thriller and his usual setting of California to tell this story of Fritz Tullis, the black sheep of a prosperous Maryland family, and the murder he witnesses.

Tullis, a former history professor forced to resign in disgrace, has carved out a minimalist existence in the woods on his mother's estate. He spends his days bird-watching, and on one expedition, he sees (and photographs) a murder on a neighbor's land. Touchy about breaking out of his isolation, Tullis is initially reluctant to report a crime that doesn't seem to impact him. The novel deals with Tullis's decision to quietly investigate the crime to see if he should actually report it to the authorities. Along the way, he begins to undergo a healing process that can restore his life.

As is typical with Freedman, this book is written in the first person and, unusually, in the present tense. The departures from his usual story and setting work okay, but he is usually stronger on his more familiar ground. There is very little that is wrong with this story, but it is not exceptional enough to merit five stars. Nonetheless, it is a fast and entertaining read for those who like mysteries.