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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Black is back!, March 10, 2009
After a 10-year hiatus, PI Thomas Black returns with the strongest entry yet in this series.
The story begins with Thomas in the hospital recovering from injuries received when a bomb exploded near a political candidate for whom Thomas was working. That candidate's opponent had been killed weeks earlier in an airplane crash that also took the life of Thomas's wife, Kathy. As Thomas tries to remember what happened from the time of the plane crash on, he also has to struggle with what is real and what is a product of his medication. This is a terrible oversimplification of a complex plot that is complemented by the book's complex structure.
Emerson's writing is strong and the plotting is air-tight. The grimness of fresh grief is offset by the humor and the genuine warmth of Thomas's character. The conspiracy theories introduced by one of the secondary characters are fascinating. The reader can choose to buy into them or choose to read them purely as imaginative fiction, but the way Emerson tightly connects his fiction to reality is bold and breathtaking, and best of all is that he pushes his readers to think about the possibilities. One of the things I've always liked about Emerson's leading characters, such as Thomas Black and Mac Fontana, is that they are not shy about their opinions, that they think for themselves, that they have an innate and healthy disdain for politicians, bankers, corporate bosses, and anyone else whose profession involves lying on a daily basis.
One of the points Emerson makes -- though he never beats the reader over the head with a message in favor of telling a ripping yarn -- is how investigative journalism is now controlled by a few large corporations. What that says about the future of truth in journalism and the lack of transparency in government is truly scary. And you don't have to be a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist to know what a bad idea it is to have a few rich people controlling the media.
Thomas's struggle to remember becomes a race to find the truth. And the truth may be something that will haunt him forever. Few thrillers grip me as emotionally as this one did, start to finish. I think this is Emerson's best book ever.
I'd like to add that I'm disappointed that some readers cannot separate reality from fiction. That a number of conspiracy theories are expounded by a flakey fictional character in the book does not mean that the author intends for the reader to accept them as fact. I do think the author says that as citizens we have a responsibility to not merely accept 'spin,' but to do our own research and reach our conclusions based on fact and not journalistic pablum and certainly not on fictional stories intended first and foremost to entertain. We all know, for example, that had the financial press done its job, had we as citizens insisted that they do their job, parts of the economic recession we are now enduring could have been avoided, i.e. the bank failures and the Madoff larceny. I personally don't buy into too many conspiracy theories, but as a former employee of the federal government I also know there is a great deal of interesting information that never makes into the public domain for reasons that sometimes make sense and sometimes don't. That aside, I still think 'Cape Disappointment' is a tremendous story, one of the best thrillers I've read in the last couple of years.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Conspiracy Theories, April 30, 2009
It would be easy to dismiss this novel based on its somewhat incredible plot. But then there have been revelations of torture and worse sponsored by the US government, so that the premise that some rogue or quasi-official federal agents used nefarious tactics including assassination and a plane crash to influence a U.S. Senate race in the State of Washington might not be so far-fetched. After all, conspiracy theories abound from the Kennedy assassination to 9/11, and while many if not most may seem absurd or far out, many make for a good story.
As does this novel, in which Thomas Black, a PI, and his wife, Kathy, find themselves on the opposite sides of the Senatorial campaign: she for the popular incumbent, he, although his sympathies lie with his candidate's opponent, works for the challenger, fulfilling a long-standing obligation. The incumbent is running far ahead in the polls, and Thomas' side runs a more and more negative campaign. Then, the Senator and her staff, including presumably Kathy, take off in a chartered plan as Thomas watches it take to the air, only to plunge head-long into the Pacific, with all passengers obviously dead.
Thomas, himself, is the victim of a bomb blast, but he recovers from serious wounds. Then he begins to investigate the plane crash, and the seemingly obvious may not be in fact the truth. If one can get beyond the incomprehensibility of the premise that murder and other dirty tricks can be a norm, this tightly written political suspense story makes for an exciting read. Certainly, it is original, and recommended.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Black Bombed, November 27, 2009
Seattle P I Thomas Black wakes up in a hospital after surviving a bomb explosion at a campaign appearance for a US Senate candidate for whom he is providing security services. He was badly hurt and his memory of the explosion and other events is problematic. Nor is he certain whether his wife, Kathy, is alive or dead. Gradually, through a series of fragmentary memory flashbacks, we learn that Kathy was supporting another candidate, a woman who is the incumbent senator. The Senator was killed in a seemingly inexplicable plane crash, and Black eventually realizes that Kathy was supposed to be on that plane.
Soon Black is working with identical twin friends of his who are deeply paranoid, one more than the other. The more paranoid twin claims to have been a "black ops" agent and assassin for the government and believes that the plane crash, the explosion and many other untoward events are the result of nefarious government actions, all in furtherance of the continuing control of the world by a cabal of billionaires. How far Black goes with this is a bit unclear, but he certainly seems to buy the "evil government conspiracy" part, and that is enough to generate the usual paraphernalia: The evil doers know everything, electronically spy on everything, control all media and information, alter records, run the authorities etc. In short, the foe is omniscient and omnipotent, and the novel proceeds accordingly.
From a writer's viewpoint this presents both an opportunity and a problem. The opportunity is thrilling people by the courage and skill of more or less ordinary people seeking to escape such power. The problem is that, if the foe is omniscient and omnipotent, then (as the famous line goes) "resistance is futile."
Solutions to this problem exist, but are credible only in the hands of extraordinary writers. For all the past appeal of the Black novels (I read them with enjoyment back in the day), Emerson does not bring it off in this one.
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