Customer Reviews

Burn Notice: The Fix

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It was supposed to be a nice lunch with his mother at a fancy hotel. Instead, Michael Weston winds up leaving quickly when he notices agents everywhere on the patio. No, he isn't being paranoid. But they weren't out for him but his ex-girlfriend Fiona. Investigating further, he discovers that Fi was set up by Natalya. Natalya is former KGB and is in a bit of a bind. Seems if she doesn't come up with the money she is accused of stealing, she will be killed. She blames Michael for her problem, so she's giving him the same choice.

Meanwhile, Sam has agreed to help Cricket O'Connor, a woman who fell in love with the wrong man. Her husband has disappeared with most of her money, and thugs keep showing up demanding the rest. Somehow, Michael has to track down the guy's real identity and then get Cricket's money back. Can he do it while keeping Natalya at bay?

Here's the great news. If you are a fan of the TV show this book is based on you will love it. The characters are spot on, including a couple recurring characters who shows up. Michael narrates the book for us, so the entire thing feels exactly like one of his voice overs from the show. All the action and humor of the show translate perfectly to the written page.

Even if you aren't familiar with the show, you should be able to follow the basics. We're given enough information that all the relationships make sense.

Unfortunately, I had a couple problems with the plot. While it was fast paced and kept me reading, a couple times I wondered why exactly the characters were doing what they were doing. I quite possibly did miss something, but I couldn't figure it out by rereading parts of the book. Additionally, the language is a little worse than what they can get away with on TV, especially in a couple scenes. These are both minor issues, and on the whole I really did enjoy the book.

This was a pleasant read. Fans of the TV show will love having it as a tide me over between episodes. And it just might bring some new fans into the fold.

I was very excited to see a paperback of my favorite TV show. I wish this had lived up to my excitement. Instead, it was a very long, somewhat boring attempt at capturing these great characters and sticking them in a book. The characters were molded to fit the authors writing style. Michael was too cynical, Sam too slovenly and Madeline too annoying. The only person who was close to accurate was Fiona, but it would be difficult not to portray her accurately as she's fairly one dimensional.

The "voice over" that works so well on the show is drawn out and over done in the book. Frequently, a page or two goes by between dialog while we get instructions on the history of whatever; Fisher Island, a magazine, a half dozen branches of the secret service.

I'll stick to the actual TV series which it top notch. I'm off to buy the DVD's now.

BURN NOTICE, featuring Jeffrey Donovan in a role that seems made-to-order for him, became my favorite television show during the summer of 2007. With support characters like the incredibly sexy Gabrielle Anwar and Bruce Campbell flanking him, I am constantly in awe and in love with every episode. I've yet to feel slighted with last year's season or this year's.

Tod Goldberg, brother to Lee Goldberg who has written the DIAGNOSIS: MURDER and MONK tie-in novels as well as a few episodes of the latter, was chosen to write at least three tie-in novels featuring the BURN NOTICE crew. The first, BURN NOTICE: THE FIX, is set to release on August 5, but I found a copy this week and burned through it during a plane flight.

One of the things I enjoy most about the television show is the quirky humor. Another is the first-person narrative in which burned spy Michael Westen talks to the audience and explains spy thinking and the realities of the world. Oh - and the gadgets. LOVE the gadgets.

Goldberg's book, thankfully, is chockfull of the humor and the inside knowledge that brims from the television episodes. The book reads like an episode of the television series, only it's played out longer and deeper than any 43-minute episode could equal. There are a lot more players in this one, and Goldberg plays them all well. The blend becomes exciting and intoxicating immediately.

I loved the setup of the book that got everything underway. Michael is having lunch with his mother and notices too many people watching him. Since he doesn't recognize any of them, he knows they're not there for him. In a split-second he reasons that they're there after Fiona Glenanne, his ex-lover and present/sometime partner. She used to be an IRA bomber and now supplements her income buy selling illegal weapons in Miami where the US government quarantined Michael.

In no time at all, Michael is also involved with another ex-lover/ex-enemy who blackmails him into getting three million dollars for her. She says she's in debt to the people she works for because they think she's been trafficking in illegal goods and keeping it off the books.

Then Sam Axe (played by Bruce Campbell) drops by to ask Michael for help on a project that dropped into his lap via his girlfriend Veronica. Since Sam's a retired Navy SEAL, he's biding his time sleeping with rich women that keep him in the lifestyle to which he's become accustomed until his Navy pension kicks in.

One of Veronica's women friends, Cricket O'Connor, has been preyed upon by her husband, who turns out to be a real louse. I could feel Michael's frustration on every page as his world comes apart while he deals with his problem and all the problems his family and friends insist on dumping on him. Even more than that, Fiona is jealous enough to kill the woman pressuring Michael, and he's thinking maybe that wouldn't be such a bad deal.

Goldberg is spot on with this one. As I read the witty dialogue, snappy patter, and gleaned the twists and turns that hammered Michael and that he manufactured, I saw the television episode unwind inside my head. Goldberg has the characters down cold and there wasn't a false move throughout. He plays them off each other perfectly.

After this romp through the novel based on the show, I'm really looking forward to the next pair. Hopefully, though, the books will become an ongoing enterprise. Although the summer season is going to feature 16 episodes this year, eight in the summer and eight in the winter, there's still a lot of time in between. Tod Goldberg's novels will definitely help cover those months for fans of the show.

I love the smart writing and first person narration of "Burn Notice." Having read a great many novelizations of TV shows and movies over the years, I didn't have much in the way of expectations of this one. Usually they are written in the third person point of view, all action. That way the author can through together a story without needing to really understand the characters. This style is easy to use for novelizations but generally ends up as a quick read, just fluff.

"The Fix" takes no such lazy outs. Instead, it pulls out all the stops. If you like "Burn Notice," you will LOVE this book. It's written in the same first person narration style from Michael Westin's perspective, with all the intelligence, wit, and humor of the series. Not only does it get us into Michael's head, gives us a richer sense of him as a person, but also adds to our understanding of Sam and Fiona. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, and only hope that this author is even now working on another. This is quality stuff!!!!

Let me start off with I'm a HUGE fan of the show. During the off season I picked this up to feed my fix till the new season. I wanted to like this book, I really did, but I couldn't get past the first 40 pages. My problem wasn't as much with the story as the writing itself. Misspellings, grammatical errors, and an abundance of run-on sentences made this very awkward to read. While the story seemed intriguing, I just couldn't get past the style of writing.

Tod did this one up well. From the voice overs by Michael to the descriptions of the characters, this book has the feel of Burn Notice down.

No spoilers I'll share, but this book has it's fair bit of show tie-in.

The mother, the brother, the relationship, and the angst of the burned spy. There are guns, explosions, and sexiness. I really enjoyed the play on Michael's relationships with the women in his life.

I felt like I could even hear Sam's voice in this book.

I look forward to more work by Tod Goldberg.

but it was entertaining in trashy sort of way.. pretty much just like the show. It really was amazing how much reading this book felt like watching an episode. If you like the show, you'll like the book.

Being a fan of the TV series, I was naturally curious to see how it translated to the printed page. For the most part, the characters were pretty much spot-on, particularly with Michael's breezy dialogue about how life as a spy compares to civilian life.

However, I had a lot of problems following the plot. Maybe I'm just slow on the uptake, I never could quite grasp exactly what was going on, particularly the subplot involving Natalya, an ex-KGB agent that he had tangled with in more ways than one. But despite all that, I still enjoyed this book, enough to try the next one--I just hope that it isn't as confusing either.

BURN NOTICE
THE FIX

I love the show in which this book was based, it is with out a doubt one of the greatest shows of all time. Of course I originally started watching it because of the great Bruce Campbell. But as soon as the show started I loved everything about it, so of course I had to get the books when they came out. Still not sure why I never reviewed this before but I guess the time is now. I have been doing a lot of reading lately, not to long ago I spent a lot of time in a hospital. I also spent a lot of time in Maryland so I brought a lot of books and got some reading done.

This book is amazing mainly because when you are reading it the book really feels like the show. It is narrated by Michael in the same way he narrating the show, I love how it was written. Written wonderfully by Tod Goldberg this is a highly entertaining read, especially if you like the show. He found a way to make this book feel like the show, it was not hard to get into this story at all. In fact when I was reading the book I was actually playing it in my head like the show, I could see it.

The story like the show has two different stories going on at the same time, one for each side of Michael's needs. One is for his need to find out more on his Burn Notice although this time it is a little more forced. Then another is a job he takes on with Sam who of course on the show is the great Bruce Campbell. And just like the show they mix both of them so well and start to mesh them together some how, I love it. One story involves a woman whose husband is missing, and the other involves a former lady friend of Michael's.

After going to a lunch meeting with his mother and noticing some suspicious people who are armed lurking about, Michael finds out an old friend is in town. Her name is Natalya and she was looking to get Michael's real love Fiona, and all because she needs his help. Natalya is in some trouble and basically puts it all onto Michael, but he may get closer to his Burn Notice. Also factor in that he kinda does not have a choice in the matter, so off with Fi and Sam he goes. A lot of great and exciting things happen in this book and Natalya just strikes me as sexy.

The other side to this story involves a case Sam brings to Michael's attention, a woman named Cricket O'Connor is missing husband and her money. Of course you can put two and two together but there is more to the story then there seems. So sensing that Sam really wants to help this woman Michaels comes aboard and takes on this case at the same time. So not only does he have to help find this woman's husband and money but also deal with Natalya. The action is fast paced and should not take long to read at all.

All of the humor, action, and style of the show can be found within the pages of this book. For any one who is a fan of the show there is no doubt in my mind you will like this. And for book readers who may not watch the show this one right here may just make you a fan. I guess I need to review the next book and let you all know about that one, but until then enjoy this one. I had a great time with this book and recommend it to all out there reading.

Let me start by saying I've never watched the show. But I picked up this book because I've been impressed with the author's brother's (Lee Goldberg) books, including the Monk series which got me hooked on the TV show. But this book was a snoozer for me. Way too much smug narration from the lead character (in this case, "characters" are not welcome) with a story that was confusing and not very compelling. I stuck it out to the end, for the grand finale, which wasn't all that thrilling once I got there. Perhaps the hip talk between Michael, Sam and Fiona works better on TV than it does in print? I hope so.