Customer Reviews

China Lake: An Evan Delaney Novel (Evan Delaney Series)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I really wanted to read this book but getting it proved to be a tad difficult. Stephen King praised Meg Gardiner's suspense novels in his February 9th column on the back page of "Entertainment Weekly," but pointed out that while her novels are set in California they are only published in England. I could only get the fourth one, "Crosscut," through Amazon, but who wants to begin with book four in a series? I do not always pay attention to King's recommendations, but in the back of King's "From a Buick 8" he had recommended the excellent crime novels of K.C. Constantine about Chief Mario Balzac, so I turned to the Amazon across the pond for the other four. Gardiner's fifth novel, "Kill Chain," is not due out in paperback until Spring so I selected as "few shipments" as possible to just have everything shipped then. But then they shipped the second book, "Mission Cannon" to me, followed by the third novel, "Jericho Point," the next day, in what can only be considered a blatant attempt to drive me crazy. Fortunately it was only three days later when they finally shipped me "China Lake," the first "Evan Delaney Thriller," and it arrived on Thursday, which was good because that night the Zenith City got hit by a blizzard that dumped two feet of snow and precluded mail delivery on both Friday and Saturday. But I finally had the book in my hands and could find out what King was all jacked up about.

"China Lake" begins with a religious cult jeering at an AIDS funeral in Santa Barbara, California attended by Evan Delaney. When Peter Wyoming and The Remnant start spewing their hatred the better angels of her nature require her to get in this guy's face. She assumes he is just a bigot, but Evan is underestimating this guy, and when she discovers that Tabitha, her sister-in-law, is a member of The Remnant things start going downhill fast and furious. Tabitha was married to Brian, Evan's brother, and when she split on her husband, a Navy fighter pilot, it was Evan who ended up raising their six-year-old son Luke while Brian was away on carrier duty. Evan's immediate fear is that Tabitha will want Luke back, and she is determined to protect the boy. Fortunately as a Navy brat, a lawyer, and the author of a science fiction novel "Lithium Sunset" featuring the heroine Rowan (the novel is apparently quite popular in high desert cowboy bars), Evan has resources to go alone with her stubbornness and intelligence.

I was hooked by page one of "China Lake." I know somebody who was analyzing the speeches of Jim Jones as a snake oil salesman BEFORE Jonestown made the world aware of the Peoples Temple. So I was not totally surprised that I had a visceral reaction to The Remnant's rhetoric. I got through the first hundred pages or so that first night sitting up in bed reading and I had to spend another half-hour reading something lighter just to calm down enough to sleep because I was as riled up about the situation as Evan. Be warned that things move so quickly in this novel that it is hard to find decent stopping points because you are always interested in finding out what happens next. I could also identify with Evan's propensity to do more harm than good in trying to make things right. Fortunately she is aided and abetted by her boyfriend, Jesse Blackburn, and some other friends and acquaintances. One of the nice dynamics of "China Lake" is that Jesse and Brian do not get along and on top of the escalating situation as The Remnants decide to do more than await the Last Days, Evan is constantly in the crossfire between the two. Gardiner really likes to pour it on her heroine.

I did not recall any of the specifics of King's column regarding the plot of this book by the time I finally got my hands on "China Lake," which is the name of the military base where Brian has just been stationed. What I did remember is that King lauded Gardiner for being funny, and that comment is totally on point. Actually, since the book is told in the first person, I could say that Evan Delaney is funny but the point that made me literally laugh out loud was when two members of The Remnant were arguing over whether there is a colon or semi-colon in the particular verse from in the book of Revelation (I find hermeneutics fascinating, but when people are debating Scripture while holding firearms absurdity runs rampant). Gardiner has fun with the thoughts and utterances of her character, succeeding in walking that fine line where authors attempt to use words as their playthings. Combining thrills and laughs is a tough task and Gardiner totally succeeds in carrying it off. I also like her take on redemption in the end game of the book.

Gardiner lives in London, which explains why the books of an American author are being published in the U.K., a situation that should be shortly rectified by King's enthusiasm and the resultant boost in sales. As for me, even though it turns out I could have gotten them faster from the Amazon north of the border, I will continue to get the U.K. paperbacks because (a) I want them sooner rather than later and (b) I like the looks of these Hodder paperbacks with Larry Rostant's cover images that make the set look like a set. Now my only problem is that I only have two Meg Gardiner books in the house and if I proceed directly to the next one then I will only have one left until the others arrive. Indulging myself by reading them one after the other seems inappropriate to me because books like this need to be fully savored before moving on to the next one down the line.

Meg Gardiner writes a great crime thriller. The action starts fast and keeps going. I was instantly engaged with the opening scene, a confrontation at a funeral between mourners and picketers, and from there, the emotional impact just doesn't let up. Meg gives us us characters we care about -- a lot -- and doesn't let us breath a sigh of relief till the very end.

Meg Gardner's writing style is engaging and entertaining. She has a vivid imagination and China lake will take you a way for a while. The attention to geographic detail, while not taking it all the way to boring, strikes a nice balance here. Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Looking forward to the next one.

In my opinion of course. The peril is inflated to a ridiculous degree. The idea of using a fundamentalist nut cult like the one that protests at soldiers' funerals as the bad guys is a good one. If it could have been used as a threat just against the protagonist's family, the story might have retained a sense of tense reality. But, instead, this one church cult with one dinky congregation is pumped up into a threat of national proportions with little expanation as to how they obtained the wherewithal to do so.

And that isn't the only problem, the protagonist is a particularly feckless young woman who keeps exposing herself to really dangerous situations with no preparation or back-up or even much thought. And the local authorities are painted as so stupid that they don't even go after the bad guy cult when they openly committ acts of public destruction and mayhem. I could go on. But what's the point? It has been so highly praised by Stephen King no less and others here too, my opinion hardly matters at all.

Still, I would like to understand why the popular opinion runs so counter to my own. It could be the attraction is the portrait of an American society gone seriously bonkers, a kind of geek and freak show. They say she's popular in Britian, maybe that's why.

But I can't help but think that the author has allowed rampant sensationalism to break the back of her narrative. I'm sorry to say that the only reason I finished the book was because I paid eight bucks for it.

What did everyone see that I didn't? I thought this book was less than marginal. The heroine goes to the cult's worship center--alone. She confronts members--alone. She goes to their isolated compound--alone. She is competent with a gun and knows the baddies are circling, yet refuses the one her brother offers. She leaves her nephew, who is in danger, with a woman she hasnt spoken to since high school. She gets huffy with her brother's best friend but turns to a guy she met in a gas station. Then the bad guys expect her naval officer brother to steal them a missile with biological weapons and a) think he will do it and b) think no one will notice? Argh...I kept waiting for something clever or intriguing but it never came. Oh yeah, the cops were all idiots who never once believed her no matter what happened. Nor did they arrest any members of the cult for trashing a block, attempting to kidnap the nephew AND they let them visit the brother in jail--while there was a manhunt out for them. Plus, the female cult leader and the brother are supposedly the same age, yet she poses as his wife's mother? One of the characters says she wants to have Stephen King's baby, so maybe thats why he said he liked it...No-- even that doesn't wash...

Being a long time fan of Stephen King, I regularly read his books and his Entertainment Weekly column. Through him I discovered The Drive By Truckers, who are AWESOME musicians and now China Lake AND Meg Gardiner. I read this book in about 3 sittings. It moves well, characters are believable and well drawn and the plot is great. I won't add any more plot lines, since the other reviewers have done so. GET IT, READ IT AND THEN DO WHAT I AM DOING, KEEP READING MEG GARDINER! There are five books featuring this main character, so just coming along it is nice to be able to follow the character for four more books!

This mystery is a real summer beach book. It is meant to be taken to the beach and left on the sand. Maybe some surfer will use to light a fire.
Actually, it is a bit of a hoot at times. The author liberally uses adjectives to the point of gluttony. Women have "masses of toffee-colored hair" Men sport "tousled ebony curls."All the women are cooly professional meddlers except for the fat, sweaty, brain-dead females of the congregation, while the men are either defense lawyers with noble goals, strong in their disabilities or heroic fighter pilots with piercing blue eyes and sea-burnished skin. Unless, of course, they are the evil fundamentalist groupies who have pustulent skin, greasy hair and braying voices.
Maybe the author should stick with "bodice-rippers" and leave serious thriller writing to the professionals who can actually draw characters.

I am now only going to hunt down books with no popular author blurbs. I, along with other reviewers had become interested in Meg Gardiner from a Stephen King article in EW. When I saw the book for sale, knowing that she was previously unpublished in the U.S. I thought "Great, SK cannot lead me astray again!" I couldn't read more than 50 pages. I thought the story was lame and the characters downright annoying, especially the main character, Evan Delaney. Page after page I kept hoping it would get better. For me, it didn't.

First Sentence: Peter Wyoming didn't shake hands with people; he hit them with his presence like a rock fired from a sling-shot.

Evan Delaney, a non-practicing attorney, is taking care of her nephew Luke. Her bother Brian, a Navy pilot, has legal custody of the boy but has left him with Evan while he is at sea. Evan discovers Luke's mother, Tabitha, who abandoned Luke and Brian, is back in the area. She is now a member of The Remnant, a hate-based religious cult. What starts as an attempted abduction of Luke by the group, end up murder when the leader is found dead inside Brian's cabin.

I could not be bothered to finish this book it was so badly written. Where do I start? The characters: The protagonist, who had the maturity level of a 10-year-old, spent most of her time being too stupid to live, the police were portrayed as complete idiots--from the very beginning, I thought the ATF should have been all over the cult--the members of the cult were way over the top even for being cult members, even the brother irritated me.

The writing was dreadful. From the structure of the chapters, to some of the worst metaphors I've ever read, to terrible dialogue there were times I felt as though English were the author's second language. There were portents. I hate the use of portents. They are unnecessary and divisive and nothing could have kept me reading this book.

I know the author has other books in this series. I can only assume her writing is substantially improved, but I shan't be reading her to find out.

It seems like everyone else writing reviews for this that I tried out this first Evan Delaney thriller based on the glowing recommendation of Stephen King. Here's my thoughts: The heroine who lives in the near bucolic Santa Barbara, feels very reminicent of Sue Grafton's plucky Kinsey Milhone. There were times when I almost thought this could've been one of the alphabet mysteries with a few character changes. The plot is timely and freakish enough with a religious fudamentalist in the vein of the Reverend Roy Phelps preparing to save the world from eternal damnation with Evan and her brother getting tied up with his cult. Ultimately the book is entertaining enough in a summer movie kind of way: Big action, a smattering of romance, a child in peril, and some silly plot devices you just have to go with in order to enjoy the ride. That's all fine, except at the end of the day it wasn't worth the near thirty bucks I shelled out to get it. I'd suggest looking for a used copy, and saving yourself some bucks until it's publshed by an American publisher.