Customer Reviews

Even Steven

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's quite obvious to fans of John Gilstrap that this is an author who likes the "chase". In his debut novel, Nathan's Run, he had 12 year old Nathan Bailey being chased by the cops. In his second novel, At All Costs, the entire Donovan family was being chased by the FBI. Now in his third novel, Even Steven, Gilstrap has stayed true to form as we find Susan and Bobby Martin being chased by the cops, the FBI and a kidnapper.

In this book, Gilstrap gives us three concurrent stories that you know will eventually be neatly tied together by this skillful author. In Maryland, Susan and Bobby Martin have been disappointed one too many times in trying to have a baby. After their last mishap, they decide to take a camping trip to West Virginia to regroup and celebrate their wedding anniversary. In Pittsburgh, April Simpson returns home from work to find out that her three year old son Justin has been kidnapped. In West Virginia, two brothers, Jacob and Samuel, have been hired out to kidnap a child. You will travel from state to state during this chase led by FBI agent Russell Coates.

The opening scene finds Susan and Bobby relaxing at their campsite when their peaceful evening is disturbed by a screaming child who is obviously running away from someone. While trying to quiet the child, a man comes running into the clearing claiming to be the boy's father. The couple realize that something is not right with this scenario and challenge the man. A fight ensues, someone is killed and the "chase" begins.

Those familiar with Gilstrap now know they will be in for the ride of their lives. As with his other two books, it is a fast- paced page turner and, midway through the book, you can't imagine how this will ever turn out OK. As the FBI begins to close in, Agent Coates has his own doubts as to the actual suspects at the same time that the reader does.

I became a fan of this author when I read Nathan's Run three years ago. I now anxiously await every new book he writes knowing that I will never be disappointed. He's one of a kind in a class all his own. I envy anyone who hasn't read his books yet knowing that they have some wonderful surprises ahead of them.

To judge from the blurb on the book's dust jacket, it appears to the reader as if Gilstrap has written yet another imperiled child/family-on-the-run novel for which he's rapidly becoming known. But Pocket Books, John Gilstrap's new publisher, is deliberately misleading the reader into making such an assumption. The central protagonists, Bobby and Susan Martin, spend most of the book either at their house or the mall. The only time they are on the run is when they're escaping the murder scene at the national park and are racing back home. Other than that, it's notable that Mr. Gilstrap was trying to stretch his wings a bit here and leaving mainly his devotion to the family unit as the only common denominator shared by NATHAN'S RUN, still his high water mark, and AT ALL COSTS. Pocket Books, however, would have you believe otherwise. Shame on them.

That said, EVEN STEVEN starts out promisingly. As always, Gilstrap sets up conflicts and situations that actually ENGAGE the reader. You FEEL Bobby and Susan Martin's desperate bid for parenthood, you HURT with April Simpson in her hopeless situation. These are real-life problems that plague so many of us, yet Gilstrap is able to give them even more dramatic impact in his fiction.

But then something very strange happens- the character delineation stops and, while the book takes place over a 24 hour period and doesn't leave much room for character development (OTOH, Susan dramatically swings back and forth from a normal state to a completely delusional state back to a normal state in those 24 hours), the reader is denied the chance for more backstory in these characters' pasts and they become mere automatons for a resolution that is telegraphed all the way from the middle of the book.

The action is thrilling, many people get killed or seriously injured but the loose threads hanging at the end of the book are simply unforgivable. What happens to Samuel? What exactly happens to Ricky Timmons at the national park? What was the result of the test at the end of the book, something that seems to have been cribbed from the finale of Tom Clancy's PATRIOT GAMES?

How did Jacob Stanns get ahold of a police ID and how did he and Patrick Logan even meet since the former lived in WV and the latter in Pittsburgh? Aren't there enough thugs in Pittsburgh so the crime bosses don't have to import muscle from the sticks? And how does a supposedly canny crime boss suddenly get stupid enough to go back to a federal crime scene to meet with the accomplice of a kidnapper he'd hired (with kid in tow)?

And what DA in his or her right mind would simply throw out an ironclad case in which a person attempts to rob a mall, resists arrest and fires a gun at a crowd? And, in the Martins's case, the legal resolution wasn't even addressed- Their problems just seem to have vanished as if the reader can take it on Gilstrap's blind faith that federal prosecutors are soft-hearted public servants who are willing to look the other way at manslaughter and possible kidnapping charges.

With the conflict still far from being resolved, the reader looks at the page number, then at the last page and realizes that only about 80 or so pages remain for Gilstrap to resolve all these myriad details. When one sees that he doesn't (he wastes his dwindling space and time dawdling in Samuel's mind about how his father was killed), one has to wonder if his editor at Pocket Books gave him enough time to finish the final draft. The denouement is one of the most telescoped I've ever seen and the ending, while mildly thrilling, left me feeling cheated and unsatisfied.

The reason why I'm giving EVEN STEVEN three stars is because Gilstrap's writing seems to improved over the indulgences that occasionally mar NATHAN'S RUN and AT ALL COSTS. Once again, Gilstrap is pragmatic, world-weary, and amusingly cynical. He shifts POV and narrator voice expertly (Samuel's simple-minded narrator, in a way, reminds me of The Digger's in Deaver's THE DEVIL'S TEARDROP).

Overall, despite its initial promise, EVEN STEVEN is a thin, anemic effort that doesn't match up to NATHAN'S RUN or even AT ALL COSTS. I hope that John Gilstrap takes greater care with his next effort.

Even Steven was one of the better books I have read in awhile. The story begins with a young couple, camping outdoors on a romantic weekend with the hopes of overcoming their pain of not being able to have a child. Mysteriously, a child comes running from the woods, screaming, a toddler. The couple then becomes involved in a game of cat and mouse, a web of murder and drug smuggling, kidnapping, and intrigue. Their lives are turned upside down in a matter of an hour. The story is fast paced and interesting, and will keep you turning pages. The ending is....well, can't give that one away, let's just say it is an interesting turn of events. This author has a great grasp on how to entice and hold onto a reader.

Gilstrap returns with another tale similar to his previous two novels. Once again, an seemingly innocent family is thrown into a situation beyond their control. Emotions run even deeper in this novel compared to Gilstrap's previous work as you find out the origin of the title character.

The storyline is good, and Gilstrap uses rhetorical questions by his charaters to answer many questions in the reader's mind. The action is quick and the plot relatively twisting, but it seems that in every other chapter Gilstrap introduces a new charcter with a lot of emotional baggage about which he barely brushes the surface. On top of this, the character readers get to know the least is the small boy who is the focus of the novel's plot. I would have preferred more detail on a few characters and less on others, instead of not quite enough information about any of them.

I enjoyed the book and I'd recommend it to fans of "Nathan's Run" and "At All Costs", but with a caveat to keep your expectations in check. This latest effort is worth the read, but a step below Gilstrap's previous efforts.

They say, "Time heals all wounds," but no one explained that to Bobby and Susan Martin. To escape their grief as much as to celebrate their wedding anniversary, the depressed duo goes camping high in the West Virginia Mountains. However, a man frightening a little boy interrupts their idyllic time. Bobby intercedes until the man pulls out a gun. In the resultant battle, Bobby kills the man, who turns out to be a cop. They flee taking the child with them, as Susan believes this is an act of God. The dead man's brother swears vengeance for failing to help his sibling.

A Pittsburgh drug dealer has abducted April Simpson's toddler in an attempt to collect a debt her spouse owes the man. A desperate April is arrested robbing a store trying to gain money for her child's release. FBI agent Russell Coates struggles to retain his current status. He is able to see the link between the Martins and the Simpsons, but will justice be served if he enforces what he knows?

The story line is faster than the Barry Allen Flash as it moves forward at an incredible clip requiring readers to use seat belts. All the charcaters, even the anguished Martins, are never fully developed as the action simply overwhelms the cast. For readers who enjoy hyperspeed, EVEN STEVEN is the novel to take you there. For those who relish deeper characterization and a more leisurly plot, John Gilstrap's latest tale is a pass.

Harriet Klausner

Susan and Bobby are camping out near the Catoctin River on their anniversary and trying to forget the pain and sadness of a miscarriage, when suddenly a small, filthy child crosses their path. He is only about 3 or 4 years old and obviously terrified. A disreputable-looking man comes looking for the child, but Bobby immediately senses something amiss when the boy cries out in terror. They refuse to turn over the boy, and in the fight that ensues, Bobby accidentally kills the intruder. Not knowing how to handle such a situation, they pack up and flee home with the boy. Susan is so desperate to have a child, that she becomes delusional and unrealistic and wants to keep him and pretend that he is their child. This is where the book descends too far into unreality. You can't just pick a child from the "lost-and-found" and keep him. The parallel plot line of the terror his real mother feels at losing him is heart-wrenching and far more plausible.

The true criminals are incredibly stupid, and have gotten involved with some really bad guys, and Bobby and Susan's welfare is increasingly precarious as the criminals track them down. The plot becomes almost like a Keystone-cops routine, and somehow I was never truly convinced that they were in mortal danger. However, I remained curious enough about how the plot would unravel to follow it through to the predictable ending.

Thoroughly enjoyed Gilstrap's two previous books, Nathan's Run and At All Costs, and expected to be pleased with Even Steven. But when I caught my breath after the crazy 24-hour ride that is this book - WOW, I realized this is his best yet- and a wild ride it is. The action is real, so when it gets to the big screen, there won't be much work to do on the screenplay! The characters really ring true, and I wanted to stay with them. The author is truly a master of character and suspense, and so very good at describing the range of emotion that comes with having children in our lives. Bravo Mr. Gilstrap!

I am usually a reader of sci-fi/fantasy in fiction, so I put off reading John Gilstrap's "Even Steven" for a long time after someone gave it to me. It just rode in my back seat for a year or so, as I kept skipping it in favor of books I had chosen for myself. Last week I brought it into work with me and read it in a few breaks, and to my surprise, I found that I REALLY enjoyed it.

John Gilstrap has a gift for this kind of book, (Suspense) his characters are believable and not cartoonish as one often finds in Mystery/Suspense stories. The protagonist (the two couples with their different takes on their desires for parenthood), the FBI agents, the Rangers and the Cops), as well as the drug Lords and even the killers had just the right amount of flaws to make them interesting, but not so many as to make them unbelievable.

It is the story of a young couple who are in despair over the most recent of several miscarriages, and of another mother who is pregnant with a dead beat husband, who has her toddler kidnapped as collateral for a debt that her husband incurred with a local crime boss. What ensued is a page turning psychological suspense story mixed in with an old fashioned police mystery. All in all, a well written story with characters you can feel something about.

So here's the deal, if you are in any kind of mood for a well written novel, and don't just hate suspense stories, then "Even Steven" is a book you should really like!

I really like Nathan's Run, but couldn't get into At All Costs. I'm glad Even Steven came along. Very fast paced and a convoluted, but very followable , plot. Enjoy it.

I enjoyed Gilstrap's Nathan's Run and At All Costs, but Even Steven was a grind. The eternal internal monologues were drudgery. A lot of it was down right corny. It was hard for me to believe that an upper-middle-class, educated, married couple would act the way the protagonists did. Didn't seem real to me. April Simpson maybe, Bobby and his wife, no. Some reviewers said this book was gripping, and moved fast. The only place it moved fast was at the end. I hope Gilstrap rediscovers his storytelling ability in time for his next one.