Customer Reviews

Carlucci's Heart

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Carlucci's Heart is the latest, and maybe the best, of Russo's novels featuring Lt. Carlucci, a homicide detective in futuristic San Francisco. Russo's previous novels, "Destroying Angel" and "Carlucci's Edge" are other great stories, and it is not necessary that they be read chronologically to be enjoyed. The stories are suspenseful and move well, and dialogue is sharp and real. The real strengths of Russo's books are: the vivid portrayal of our civilization to come, and the character of Carlucci, a good man doing his best in a struggle against a world going to hell. DEFINITELY WORTH CHECKING THIS BOOK OUT.

I ended up staying up half the night before finals to finish this book. I could not put it down. The characters drew me in, made me feel for them, want to help them......

not cyberpunk, no strange technology, the setting is a future san francisco/united states where there is numbness to the power of the commercial ruling class. the story is part epidemic, part human drama, dads and children, love stories. weaves a powerful story around a strange and unusual environment. i have not read the other carlucci books but plan to put them on my list.

I thought this novel was one of the best I have ever read. You are drawn into Russo's darkly beautiful world, and it is so much fun. He is as good, if not better than William Gibson. His prose is richly textured and detailed. I hope he doesn't make us wait long for another great story.

If murder, plague, and conspiracies aren't enough to draw you in, Russo's writing style will. Heart manages a good blend of modern cyberpunk and the trench-coated classics of old. The characters are deep, believable, and really draw you into their world.

I found this book interesting -- it hung together as a mystery/murder investigation by a cop who can't be bought. The mix of murder, missing person, disease/plague, cut-throat business tactics, lack of basic medical for almost everyone, red-tape, character interactions keeps you reading. Sometimes just when you think you have it all figured out it skews by 90 degrees.

I did have a problem with so many characters that seemed to pay bills, live in apartments but have no visible means of support and be always available to the main characters when needed. I can suspend belief but I do wonder about how people can get along without working maybe it's wishful thinking.

This is a believeable powerfull look at future life on this earth if we do not deal effectively with social, political, environmental, moral and ethicl issues. The message is "must reading" for all critical thinkers and visionaries, not just sci fi reader. The Carlucci books would make dramatic gut-wrenching movies.

I haven't read a whole lot of cyberpunk, but most of what I have read (e.g., Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash) has been quite a bit better than this. Russo mixes a cyberpunkish background with a detective story, and gets something that is really not quite up to the best of either. The plot of this book needs tightening up--far too many pages pass with little or nothing happening in the case that is the center of the novel. And Russo doesn't quite have the voice of the inner-city cop down--try any of Lawrence Block's Matt Scudder mysteries to see a master of this genre at work. The premise here was interesting, and the narrative didn't flag, but I found a fair amount of the writing and reactions of the characters to be a little too predictable.

A suspenseful disease-detective story, this Carlucci story has surprising sensitivity, depraved realism, and shows R.P. Russo at his best ever, dishing out scene after scene of startling vividness. After it was over, I felt like I had been there. Once I started, I had to stay with it to the end.

"Carlucci's Heart" starts out strong, and fizzles out at the end.

This is the third Carlucci novel by Russo. Readers don't need to have read the other Carlucci novels, but are advised to do so. The story is about the aging Detective Lieutenant Frank Carlucci in his going to hell, near future San Francisco. In this story, a group of medico-terrorists operating out of San Francisco's anarchistic, free-zone, "The Core" is suspected of releasing an bio-engineered form of hemoragic fever. Russo picks-up the long-term plot lines from his previous novels and extends them, but doesn't finish any of them.

The first novel, "Avenging Angel" was OK, but could have been better. The second, "Carlucci's Edge" was better. Actually, it was pretty good. "Carlucci's Heart" is better still. Russo's writes a pretty fair cyber-punk, detective novel. His prose is good, and his tech is fair although uneven in points. I like his characters, a lot.

The Carlucci series is still basically, a 90's police novel with a cyberpunk veneer. However, it is the best of the cyberpunk/detective genre. This series still needs a more through consistency check. The background use of computers, bio-technology, and aerospace technology in this near-future are not consistent with each other. What bothered me the most about "Heart" was the ending. In both of Russo's previous novels he rushed to the end, duct taping the story's loose-ends together to close in 300 pages. "Heart" is no exception. It has a strong start, a healthy middle, and an atrophied ending. Even crutching on the reader's knowledge from previous novels doesn't help this novel in the end.

"Heart" is the best Carlucci novel to date. While Russo's characterization and dialogue are improving, there is not a similar improvement in the author's ability to pace his way through the story. This Carlucci novel, like everyone before it leaves me thinking "That's it?" at the end. I'm losing my patience with this author.