Customer Reviews

Empire of Lies (Weiss and Bishop)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Klavan evokes both Cornell Woolrich and Alfred Hitchcock in his latest thriller, telling the story of middle aged Jason Harrow, whose extremely conservative present conceals an extremely reckless youth. In trying to keep his past from ruining the life he's so painstakingly built for himself, Harrow becomes involved in a nightmare scenario that would challenge even the most competent among us. Add in the fact that this scenario seems almost designed to press his particular mental buttons, and you can easily see why Harrow eventually begins to question his own sanity.

Although he's been criticized elsewhere for pandering to the far right in his choice of protagonist, and, for that matter, antagonists, Klavan does a great job in evoking empathy for Harrow, who comes off as likable in spite of his headstrong nature and his often pompous posturing. This comes from Klavan's skill in steadily kicking out the foundations of his hero's life, until Harrow comes to feel that it's literally him against the world--his courage in facing and solving his dilemma when the odds are clearly against him are inspiring. Klavan is also canny enough to provide some welcome comic relief by throwing in an outrageous character obviously based on William Shatner--once you meet and recognize him, you can't wait until his next appearance in the narrative.

Andrew Klavan's books never fail to entertain. He has taken a bold step with this novel. Jason Harrow is the center of this novel about a good man who confronts his past and his future with strong opinions about both. What starts with a phone call from his old girlfriend about her missing daughter twists into a tale of reunion, disappearance, celebrity, politics and terrorism. Clearly drawn characters many of whom are not quite what they seem to be populate these pages. What are their motivations? Who can be trusted? To give much away would be unfair to readers. A stunning climax with even more drama in the final few pages make this one of the best of the year.
Klavan's honest view of modern media and it's penchant to find fault with America's policies and how they cause people to want to commit vile acts is bound to be controversial. Make no mistake, this is a page turning thriller with a message that is so often ignored but needs to be told. The risks Klavan takes should be admired and celebrated.
Twists and turns galore populate this stunning story and open minded readers will be left with a great deal to think about while being completely entertained at the same time. Buy this book, read it and decide for yourself.

I'm an English lit major who has read my share of the classics, but my tastes lean toward men's fiction... hard-boiled detective stories, westerns, etc. I've seen talk show host Glen Beck interview a couple of authors who sounded like they might be up my alley... "men's fiction" authors who write stories with something other than generic terrorist characters, authors who show their fictional terrorists as having radical islamist leanings, and I've checked out two of the authors I've seen on the Beck show: Brad Thor and Andrew Klavan.

Maybe it was just the Brad Thor booked I picked up, but I thought Thor was a fairly bad writer and I found his dialogue very stiff. Klavan, however, is a different story. He's won writing awards and recognized writers such as Stephen King enjoy his work. I found this book tight, brutal, current-as-today's-headlines, and just a real joy to read.

My only complaint with the book, or maybe I should say "reservation" rather than "complaint", is that Klavan has a character in the book who is clearly modeled after actor William Shatner, and Klavan's descriptions of the Shatner character are unflattering beyond all reason. You would think that Shatner must have killed Klavan's dog or slept with his wife. Other than the "Shatner character assassination" though, I thought that this book was a five-star read. The venom directed at Shatner was confusing.

Liberal, Conservative or somewhere in between, I dare you not to find yourself agreeing with at least one un-PC statement expressed in this book.

After reading literally hundreds of novels, encompassing a variety of genres, it's refreshing to come across one containing opinions that I can agree with.

However, that was only a small aspect of what I enjoyed about this story. As usual, Mr. Klavan has skillfully written a fast-paced, intense plot. I also enjoyed the insight we're given into the main character's inner struggles. Whether or not one can personally identify with the specifics of Jason Harrow's struggles, I found myself relating to the process itself - Will he give in to or resist his base nature?

I for one, not only did not have a problem with the parody of "Bill Shatner," but enjoyed the humor of it immensely. And certainly not at Mr. Shatner's expense since he seems willing to laugh at himself while participating in self-deprecating commercials. Hopefully this book's character might even give him a chuckle.

While satisfied with the book's ending, the last paragraph left me puzzled, as well as an earlier allegory of "the two Gods." I read them both several times but failed to understand the premise. Not finding fault with the author - it could be that the description was a little too mystical or ethereal for my simplistic understanding.

All that being said, whether or not one agrees with the opinions written into the plot-line - a practice all authors follow - one cannot dispute that Empire of Lies is a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining read.

I've never read Klavan before, but this book came highly recommended. How refreshing that someone has the balls to write a book that portrays the bad guys for who they really are.

It's an entertaining and spellbinding read, and a must for your summer list.

Klavan has brought us some very fine novels in the past, True Crime coming immediately to mind (which was also turned into a very fine Clint Eastwood movie).

But I've come to the conclusion that in this book, Klavan was more interested in putting forward his thoughts on the current political scene in the country than in actually writing a true "thriller" in the traditional sense; it strikes me more as dark satire than anything else.

In reality, if you're a Liberal, you're simply going to hate this book; there are no two ways about it. If you're conservative, you're going to find yourself nodding along and muttering "right on!" to yourself throughout.

I'll say right here, I'm a conservative, so I found his observations very sharp and accurate. The hypocrisy of the Left in refusing to acknowledge that Islamic fanaticism even exists, let alone is at the root of so many of the problems in the world today; the blatant hypocrisy of American academia; the self-involved shallowness of the "arts", particularly Hollywood and its empty-headed denizens; the "blame America first" mentality. It's all lampooned with great effect.

Great stuff!

I do think that in some respects Klavan sometimes goes overboard, specifically in that his main character is deeply engaged in his Christianity, so for traditional conservatives who don't fall into the "evangelical" category this can sometimes be slow going. Had I written the book, I'd have made the character's conservative values be based more on the principles of the Constitution, and less on the Bible.

Nonetheless, the satire of the Left was as accurate as a laser-guided smart bomb, and blows their pious sanctimony to smithereens.

That ALONE was worth the price of admission!

I've never read any other books by this guy but i'm buying the rest of his oevre. I'm surprised he had the courage (or nerve?) to write this book and even more incredible he got it published because its so provocative. Whats great about it is that it actually makes sense and while at times blunt, it really comes from a valid place. Klavan is clearly a conservative but this is really a book for liberals like myself. I"m still voting for Obama, but this book makes sense to me and I'm having all my friends read it. I really wanted to hate this book and read it so I could write an angry response to the author (yes I have lots of free time) but its so good.

Oh and politics aside, there is a great story there too!

Just finished the book and told myself that the reviews here would be sharply divided. Not a single three-star, as it turns out.

I lean right. I found the book bracing in its refusal to make a single nod to political correctness. But I think that Klavan goes too far in the narrative point of view.

I also think that he does this purposely. It seems to me that he has INTENTIONALLY shot beyond the probable sympathies of the reader.

The narrator/protagonist, as others have noted here, is not very likable. He's not repugnant, but he's flawed. He is not flawed in a Philip Marlow, lop-sided-morality-that-earns-grudging-respect kind of way. Jason Harrow (narrator/protagonist) is, I take from an interview, Andrew Klavan. The author isn't especially proud of his own level of moral maturity and doesn't want to hold it up as a model to emulate. But he does have some convictions. He isn't very good, but he knows what good means. He also knows evil. And he suspects (rightly, I believe) that Liberalism's NEED to find moral superiority via cynical insistence that any other than moral equivalence is hypocrisy, is misguided.

And this turns the old claims about hypocrisy and moral equivalence on their head, I think.

So, kuddos to Klavan for trying something different, for trying to say something honest and unpopular, and with some humility.

I picked up a copy of Andrew Klavan's Empire of Lies after watching an interview he did with Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution, and I recommend the interview to anyone who wants to understand Klavan's foundation for this story. One critical awaking, he states, was the reading of the works of the Marquis de Sade. Of all the materialist or hedonic philosophers Klavan has read, de Sade was the only one whom he found totally consistent. And when he rejected de Sade, he had to reject much of which de Sade might have approved. (Look on http://www.hoover.org/multimedia/uk for the interview).

I give the book four stars, but I'm split. Klavan did what he set out to do with the story and there's a lot of good in it. For that I'd give him five. But the style is not congenial to me, and for that I'd give it only two. His handling of certain details, right down to the story's closure, led me to give it four.

This is fundamentally a story about sin and redemption. Jason Harrow believes that he has found his way from the false freedom of a libertine life to the freedom of a life based on love and responsibility. But one more thing is to be asked of him. He is drawn back into the world of his youth in order to apply his virtues to a mission he does not understand. At every step, he is tempted and tested. The ghost of possible insanity hangs over him, the whispering, perhaps, of a snake in his ear. And the world he finds is far worse than the one he left, as falsehood has taken root--or rot--in the very fabric of truth that civilization relies on to make the judgements it needs to protect and preserve itself. Over and over, Harrow must use what he has learned in his new life, rather than trying to reason with the evil and falsehood that confronts him.

He succeeds in his mission, but his inner salvation is drawn out and precarious. It is only in the book's final paragraphs, when the last part of his mission is given to him, that he can rest. Nor has he saved society as a whole; that mission is beyond him. But he has done his part. He has saved lives. He has saved at least one soul. And a tiny bit of the rot was cleared away, at least for a while.

The story is told in the first person, with a lot of introspection and many hints about what is to come later. I find the style uncongenial, in part because of the hints. Parts of the story are ugly, but that is as it should be: the true face of evil is ugly, even unspeakable. I wonder too if parts of the story could have been more economical.

If you stand outside of Klavan's worldview, this story will challenge yours strongly. I believe that's a good thing; if you stand outside you will probably disagree.

If you believe that, as Oscar Wilde said, morality is no part of literature and books are "well written or badly written, that is all" this story's insistence on a moral battlespace may anger you. If you agree with Chesterton that every good story is a morality play, you will probably find something to like, even if the style is uncomfortable. If you simply accept the prevailing attitudes of the opinion-makers, it will force you to decide between two models of virtue, or to reject the question altogether, and that too will be a decision.

Either way, you may find your opinion changed, maybe several times, by the end of the story. If you decide to pick this book up, please stay with it to the end.

In this thriller, Jason Harrow is thrown into a world in which he doesn't know if what is happening is real or a catastrophe which he needs to prevent. He once lived in New York but moved to the midwest to a more quiet life. He found a simple woman to marry and raised a family and had a successful career as a journalist.

When his mother passes away, he and his brother are both asked if one of them can come back to New York to take care of her house. An ex-girlfriend (Lauren) from New York then calls him and tells him she needs to see him. Jason decides that he will be the one to sell his mother's house so he can have an excuse to go back to NY to see his old flame.

Lauren tells Jason that her daughter is missing and that her daughter (Serena) is actually his daughter. Apparently she had gotten pregnant just before their split and had never told Jason. Jason decides to play private investigator and track down Serena himself. When he finds her, he realizes that she is very troubled and may have witnessed something terrible. After she seems to play him for a fool and Jason no longer knows if what she told him was the truth.

Also, Lauren who seemed anxious at first to get Serena back, seems to have lost total interest. Later some weird conincidences seem to happen regarding Jason's mother's tv and Jason stumbles onto some secrets regarding his mother. Everything seems to be leaning towards "nothing" or to a possible terrorist plot.

The book holds you throughout and never gets boring. I did not rate it higher and only barely give it four stars because (note: Possible spoilers below):

- The book is narrated by Jason so when there is danger, some of the tension is lost if you know he will survive.
- Jason's mother's secret seemed like it was copied from John Nash in A Beautiful Mind.
- The reader is able to guess the target of the possible terrorist plot very early in the book.
- Jason's family seems to be an afterthought to the story. We see snippets in the beginning of the book and it seemed that Jason was not really interested in his wife when he married her. There is one or two phonecalls home in the book and when Jason is about to do something "bad" he may think about his family but that is about it.