Customer Reviews

Double Exposure

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

That's what this book by Michael Lister is: A matter dealing with life and death. A nature photographer accidentally captures a murder on his camera and spends the night running for his life from the killer-- or killers. Throughout the night, a battle between the body and mind play out as thoughts, images and memories appear that remind him of those in his life that he loved, those who passed away and those who wait for him. Life becomes something more than mere existence, yet he must exist through the night while being hunted.

I met Michael Lister at a writer's conference and he is a man who knows his stuff. This is the first novel of his that I have read and I disagree with the Publisher's Weekly blurb at the top of this page; DOUBLE EXPOSURE has won him a new fan. I highly recommend this literary thriller!

Double Exposure didn't grab me by 18%-- in fact, it repelled me, and it was hard work getting that far.

Problem 1. The writing. Short snatches. Usually. Except when the author gets a thought that requires not just a few words, but rather a long squirt in a sentence structure that takes quite awhile to parse. In case you think I'm exaggerating, here's one of the author's constructs:

"It wasn't until his father died and he had to rush home to run the small-town gun and pawn and care for his mother, that he picked up a camera again--a dust-covered, ancient, fully-automatic Nikon hocked years earlier, languishing on the shelf as power tools and small appliances had come and gone." -Kindle Locations 81-83

Problem 2. The photographic technique. The author spends a large fraction of the text describing Remington's approach to wildlife photography. Based on my photographic experience, the author describes a lot of serious mistakes that no decent wildlife photographer would make. Such as leaving the camera in his backpack until the picture he envisions shows up. Or getting motion-blurred pictures using a pair of strobe lights.

"Day. Leaping, turning, darting deer break the infrared beam, leaving blurs of buckskin behind. Too fast." -Kindle Location 551

Problem 3. The plot. Several disjointed tidbits so far. Screams in the woods? Father died. Marriage trouble. Old man with gun. Black bear with cub. Moaning about dwindling habitat. Not many things of recognizable significance, considering the number of words used up to this point. Not enough to encourage me to plow onward.

Give it a try, if you want. It didn't do much for me.

Remington James is a successful but unhappy advertising executive when his father dies. He returns to his hometown to run his father's store and care for his mother who is dying of MS. While he is home, he decides to pick up the hobby, the passion, he gave up years ago, wildlife photography. He has set trap cameras in the woods of the Apalachicola River Basin in hopes of maybe catching the elusive Florida panther. As he is out taking pictures and checking his traps one evening, he discovers that he has caught not the panther on his camera, but a murder. And now the murderers are hunting Remington through the pitch black of the Florida woods.

If readers want to read DOUBLE EXPOSURE surfacely and minimally, they are in for a heart-pounding thriller. Lister's written a tight plot that doesn't allow one to slow down for even a second, just like his protagonist.

Lister created a powerful effect by being a minimalist in this novel. His protagonist is a photographer out taking pictures in the woods. Lister's prose mimics that process so you can hear the camera shutter click as you read:

Evening. Glow.
Dark figures.
Shot.
Explosion.
Bloom of blood.
Body dropping to the cold ground.
Death. Digging.
Fire.

And Lister's setting development carries you smack into the middle of Remington's Eden that is horrifically transformed into his Hell all in the course of one night. Remington reminds himself to "Use your senses. All of them." And Lister helps the readers to use their senses, all of them. Whether they are seeing the beauty of the landscape or the nightmare of a murder. Whether they are hearing life, or feeling fear. Readers will definitely be in the woods with Remington James on the most terrifying night of his life. But they'll have to listen carefully to hear nature's sounds over the thumping of their own hearts.

If you want to delve deeper, you will find a complex interweaving of theme, plot, character and setting that results in a magical reading experience. Remington is almost a unique character in crime fiction in that he comes from a functional family. His parents loved him and he loved his parents; while Remington doesn't seem conscious of it, the reader quickly learns that both parents taught him skills that made him a great man.

And of course, nature is a prominent theme as well as a symbol in DOUBLE EXPOSURE. The dark of night is essential to build up the suspense, but it plays a role also in the idea that man is destroying nature. So Remington's manic race is not just a race for his life, but a race for nature. Can they both make it out alive?

Brilliant.
Beautiful.
Must-read!

I was very eager for this book to come out for months and was not disappointed. The book is a thriller about a photographer trying to survive a night in the woods fleeing murderers.

It was appropriate, I believe, that my first taste of the book was outside as well. Listening to the sounds of nature as I first got to know Remington James and his environment. The rest of the book was consumed when I got home well into the night. I didn't put it down until I finally found out what happened next.

The thriller is the main course, but the side dishes are as appealing too. The background story. A love story. Father and son.

The "life questions" raised in the book seem to serve as the spices used in a meal. They add flavor, layers, meaning. My thoughts seem to keep returning to this book long after I first closed its covers and put it up on a bookshelf.

I'll have to reread this soon!

I have seen that style of writing before when someone was either too lazy or doesn't know how to paint the picture with better usage of words and descriptions. From a subjective point of view, I do not like the author's writing style at all. The short incomplete sentences of nouns and verbs seem lazy and uncreative.
As for the content, there are many areas that seem to be forced to fit in the book as padding. The story itself can be classified as B-class material and non-riveting.
Giving it a 2 star because I didn't hate it enough to not finish (although did breeze through most of the content). I will not read another book from the same author Michael Lister.

I just can't understand all of these rave reviews of this book. To me, it's like the authors' friends penned the reviews. I found this book terribly lacking in depth and only showed basic writing ability, and I'm no expert by any means. The story just dragged and dragged. What was supposed to be so suspenseful seemed to me to be rather blah, blah, blah. Sorry, but that's my take on it.

I usually don't do bad reviews, but this book does not deserve the five star ratings it has gotten.

I am pretty forgiving of new self-publishing authors, especially when I am getting the book for free. The occasional bad comma splice, run-on sentence and even a misspelling here and there don't bother me. However Lister is supposed to be a professional writer and there are just too many mistakes. He over uses one word sentences and several of the longer ones are completely non-nonsensical. I flipped forward in the book to see if this style would abate sooner rather than later. I got to 10% and Lister was still going strong with the staccato writing, more like bad poetry than prose.

A good example of this is found on the first page, the pattern continues throughout the book (at least the part I was able to get through):
---------------------------------------------------------------
Evening.
Fall. North Florida.
Bruised sky above rusted rim of earth.
Black forest backlit by plum-colored clouds. Receding glow. Expanding dark.

Deep in the cold woods of the Apalachicola River Basin, Remington James slowly makes his way beneath a canopy of pine and oak and cypress trees along a forest floor of fallen pine straw, wishing he'd worn a better jacket, his Chippewa snake boots slipping occasionally, unable to find footing on the slick surface.
Above him, a brisk breeze whistles through the branches, swaying the treetops in an ancient dance, raining down dead leaves and pine needles.
It's his favorite time of the day in his favorite time of the year, his family's hunting lease his favorite place to hide from the claustrophobia of small-town life increasingly closing in on him
---------------------------------------------------------------
This is the pattern the book follows for the 10% of the book I read and the several more I just scanned to see if it went away. It didn't.

This is a classic example of overwriting, and any good editor would call Lister on it and tone it down. After restraining himself to overly short sentences in the first paragraph Lister launches into a run on sentence clocking in at 54 words. Still not unforgiveable until we get to the last sentence, which is nonsensical.

Lister needs to have someone other than a college friend be his editor. He needs the professional advise of someone who is not afraid to hurt his feelings. Which is why I am breaking my no bad review rule. Mr. Lister needs to pull the book off of Amazon, get it to a professional editor, and then republish it. I am not trying to be mean-spirited, but this book is not ready for prime time.

I must have missed something. I am just glad it did not cost me anything to read on my kindle. I hoped for a better storyline.

I had never heard of Michael Lister until I heard him speak on a panel at Bouchercon in Indy last year. I was extremely impressed with him after that night, so I sought out his newest book. After reading "Double Exposure", I was just blown away by this writer's talent. It was my favorite book of 2009, out of over 100 titles. It grabs you from the get go & you won't put it down until you've finished. It reads like poetry !! If you only get to read one book this summer...make it this one.

Double Exposure is awesome in its mininalist writing style...click click click. The author writes to suggest a camera snapping shots. However the author adjusts life as is with life that was is not what I imagined. It was a trip reading but I absolutely lost it when it ended. Please adjust your writing premise before the next book.