Customer Reviews

The Ghosts of Morning

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

 

 

Listen to this. "[H]e let his eyes drift out onto green grass meticulously trimmed and maintained, an island of order in a sea of chaos." Or, "[H]e took the bridge over to the old Van Zant house, structurally unchanged . . . living room and dining room facing the water. But the color scheme was different. Either that or . . . "

Get it? Richard Barre paints a canvas, sometime very detailed, sometimes impressionistic, and only when he's finished with it does he introduce you to his characters.

Others do that as well. James Lee Burke comes to mind. They are poets who tell stories. Reread James Dickey's "Deliverance" and you'll see what I mean.

Another point I enjoy about Barre is his respect for the Vietnam vet. I served in Vietnam so I am sometimes drawn to that genre. It's never as heroic or slash and dash as many authors make it; but Barry and a few others (Eisler, DeMille, Crais, Burke) speak to the fear, the lonlieness and the inability, ever, to distance oneself from it. Read Dick Winters' "Beyond Band of Brothers" to get a picture of the vets of Easy Company at Normandy, now in their 80's, able to recollect painful events in 'living color.'

Here Wil Hardesty is asked after an 8 year hiatus of his best friend's funeral, to see if he can find Denny Van Zant. Van Zant was killed in Vietnam, possibly murdered, and his body decomposed over a decade. What was returned wasn't much. Now Maeve Van Zant was contacted by someone who claims to know where Van Zant is. Hardesty strongly urges her to forget it, and then relents and embarks on a mission of double cross, revenge, conspiracy, unexpected twists and retribution. Well written, highly recommended. 5 stars. Larry Scantlebury

I wouldn't compare Richard Barre to Ross Macdonald or for that matter Raymond Chandler. Macdonald's writing was more subdued and touching, Chandler more witty and crackling, while Barre's is more 'wham bam'..'lets go'.

The Ghosts Of Morning is like that, fast, and twisting, it reminded me of a good action flick. Around page seventy the story really kicks into gear. I didn't find the plot confusing, Barre held it together nicely, injecting little tidbits of information to keep the reader guessing.

The flashbacks scenes are written very well as our hero Will Hardesty, attempts to find some meaning from his past as well as how it connects to his future.

Hardesty is a part-time P.I. hired by his best friends mother to find her son, who everyone has presumed dead for years. Hardesty takes the job as a favor, not realising the depth of the secret's his former friends family has buried.

I agree with some of the other reviews that, some of the charecter's are sketcy and typical, BUT the story moves along so nicely that i just ignored these shortcomings.

A very nice read...enjoy.

Richard Barre is, quite simply, a splendid writer. His gift for plotting is way beyond average, and his creation of Wil Hardesty--aging surfer with an aching heart--is pure inspiration. Barre never takes his narrative in expected directions but allows the plot to twist in on itself in elaborate coils so that his stories are never predictable. Each of his books is a treasure in itself.

"The Ghosts of Morning" is the second of the series by Richard Barre that I have read and I am totally hooked! As introduced in "The Innocents", Wil Hardesty is an interesting and complex character. In this new book he is struggling with his recent divorce and his lingering guilt over his lost son and his life. His struggle is very human and full of emotion. The action in "The Ghosts of Morning" is fast-paced and suspenseful.The mystery and the tension combined with great characters with full bodied histories makes the book fly by. As eager as I was to get to the end and resolve the mystery I was reluctant to let go of the story and Wil. I wanted to know what he was going the next day after the book ends. This book is terrific follow up to "The Innocents" but not as sad. It does evoke a retrospective feeling of the time we sent our young boys off to a horrible unknown called Vietnam. It is a reminder that we can never be so casual with a generation again. I can't wait till Wil's next adventure.

In THE GHOSTS OF MORNING, Barre gives us flashbacks to the Viet Nam war, a paean to surfing and friendship, the unraveling of a family whose "basic food groups" are guilt, anger, hate and alienation, and a dig into PI Wil Hardesty's past. Hardesty thinks of it as "dancing with bones."

Opening of Chapter One:

"Waipio Valley, Island of Hawaii, Present
They were out there all right - the Night Marchers, ghosts that stalked the valley floor on their way back to the netherworld through the secret doorway down by the beach. He'd seen them before and knew they must have seen him, but they didn't bother him. One ghost to another, so to speak."

This internal monologue comes from a reclusive, emotionally twisted Viet Nam vet who sees something that will be worth a lot of money to the right people. His attempt to profit from the information pulls Wil Hardesty out of his post-divorce doldrums into a search for a buddy whose remains were shipped home from Viet Nam, and a collateral search for the truth about a 1966 murder.

Hardesty is a knight errant in the traditional mold. He keeps his wits about him but looks for the good in people. He's a pushover for a damsel in distress. In GHOSTS he's torn between his ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend who drags him through the real-life equivalent of a fun house with distorted mirrors.

Bodies start piling up. Working from the shadows is a mysterious white-haired man with scars for a face. Who he is and what he's after ties it all together in a nail-biting climax. When it's over, with cops sorting out their hot and cold cases, Hardesty finds it's not really over after all in a satisfying conclusion.

I stayed up to 3am reading this book. Book is well plotted and has good character development. A must read for lovers of good mystery. You will love it!!

Wil Hardesty is struggling to regain control of his life after his spouse Lisa divorce him. The aging California surfer turned private investigator thinks he has already lost this internal conflict just like the Nam fiasco in which he was a member of the losing team. However, in reality, Wil is slowly regaining his self respect.

However, his own life recovery act is placed on hold when Maeve Van Zant, mother of his deceased buddy Denny (killed in Nam) and Trina (Wil's long lost love of his teen years), calls to ask for his help. Though Denny's remains were identified, Maeve, who is dying from emphysema, has received an extortion note claiming that the lad still lives. She wants Wil to investigate. Reluctantly, Wil agrees for old times sake even though he firmly believes that Denny is dead. Almost from the start, the simple case turns complex and multilayered as Wil struggles with the ghosts from his past to uncover whether his old surfing buddy still lives and who is behind the extortion plot.

THE GHOSTS OF MORNING is a brilliant blending of a contemporary who-done-it with events from the last three decades. Wil is one of the most complex private detectives on the market today and his current novel provides more insight into his past and its link to his present motives. The complex and cerebral mystery will please fans of the genre. However, it is Wil who makes this and the previous novel (THE INNOCENTS) into must reading material because his character feels so genuine and human.

Harriet Klausner

This is the best book I have read in a long time. The action is fast with twists and turns and surprises coming from every direction. Wil Hardesty is investigating a case close to his heart, the death of a friend. But is the friend really dead? I loved the characters and the mystery and highly recommend this book.

Don't let a slightly slow start deter you---once into it, this mystery will keep you turning pages until you finish it in "one sitting." It's well crafted with intriguing characters and situations.

Sorry, all you Barre fans, but I just don't get it. This Hardesty character seems like a cartoon to me, and the complicated plot became downright tedious after awhile. I think this author is incredibly overrated.