Customer Reviews

Green Pearl Odyssey

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Three pages into Green Pearl Odyssey Scott Taylor's beautiful Micronesian wife is standing on a sidewalk in LA, turning to greet him with a smile. As he drives toward her, she is shot and killed. Taylor responds by murdering her killer in cold blood.

Reilly Ridgell calls upon his Peace Corp experiences in the South Pacific in the mid-1980s to tell a story of murder and revenge that takes us on an island hopping "odyssey". Ridgell is no epic poet, but his introspective hero finds himself in adventures of his own making and beyond his control which satisfies the Greek imagery of the title.

Ridgell writes with authority and compassion as an American who has witnessed the dilemma facing the extended family style cultures of these islands trying to come to grips with modern western economic systems. He writes, "Bring money into the picture and an extended family has problems, because one member earns money but all the others expect to share in it. And soon the one working feels he cannot enjoy the fruits of his labor. He works but his brother has the new house and his uncle a new motor boat...thus the extended family begins to break up." Taylor quite naturally loved the traditional life style, but he realized that he had no right to tell them to remain primitive.

Meanwhile some very primitive Mafia types pursue Taylor on a circuitous chase endangering the lives of all who touch him through the outer islands to an eventual confrontation on Guam. As with all good travel books there are maps to help the reader keep up with the fast and furious pace and a lot more action than you'd find on the usual cruise ship. Have a good trip!

Ridgell is an author with a mission. He has composed a travelogue of Micronesia while throwing in some adventure and thrill. The intriguing descriptions of the culture, the politics of several different islands, and living the life of an American in the South Pacific provide a rich tapestry upon which the author weaves his story.
Scott Taylor, a former Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV), married an island native. They returned to the U.S. and tried to start a new life there. All these plans were cut short by a drive by shooting aimed at Scott's brother, and Scott's wife was killed as collateral damage. Scott's mind is numb with the pain and loss. He executes the killer who happens to also be the son of a Mafia boss.
Scott runs away from the consequences of his actions and attempts to hide with relatives and friends throughout Micronesia. On the way he rediscovers himself, his love of the islands and the islanders as well.
Although character development is lacking in all but Scott himself, the breathtaking vistas and relaxing island culture make this indeed an odyssey worth following. There is a great development in Scott's character and maturity as he lucks out time and again in being pursued by various lackeys and hit men.
There are several conversations where philosophies and reasons for service in the Peace Corps; in Micronesia and the effect of American Manifest Destiny on the islanders as a whole are discussed and very reasonable arguments are made.
The secondary characters are present only to fill the space between encounters and personal turmoil that Scott discusses at length. The dialogue is well-carried and required for the ideas presented. The plot primarily supports the travelogue nature of the story.
Recommended for those with a desire to learn about and perhaps travel to Micronesia. Readers should be warned about adult content and discussions.
Published by blue ocean press, 2010. (www.aoishima-research.com $16.95 USD SRP/Amazon $2.69 USD) Reviewer received book from author.

Green Pearl Odyssey by Reilly Ridgell is an unusual hybrid of an action-adventure story mixed with a textbook about the islands of Micronesia.

The hero, Scott Taylor, takes revenge on the man who killed his wife, and embarks on a sort of "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" type journey. While he hops around this hotspot of the Pacific Ocean, we are served great heaps of information about the geography, landscape, and cultural traditions of the people living there.
There are several decisions made about this book that I do not understand. For instance, the back cover of the book spells out the entire story. That the ENTIRE story can be spelled out on the back cover of the book is a different matter all together.

The preface tells readers how the various cultures they have yet to read about have changed after the book was written. There is talk about differences in their dress codes, food production, caste systems and political developments that have all occurred since the end of the story. Except, the story hasn't begun yet.

Essentially, my biggest complaint with the book is that it repeatedly violates the show-don't-tell rule. New characters are introduced and before we get to know them, the narrator tells us who they are, what they are like, and what their relationship is with Scott Taylor. Important events happen in passing, like the author is rushing us through all this bothersome dialogue and character development just to get back to the really important stuff: Giving more instruction on the geography and history of Micronesia.

I can relate, though. When I was a kid I worked in a restaurant and I was writing a story about a kid that, you guessed it, worked in a restaurant. I had pages of meticulous little details about making coffee and ordering food. All the things I thought were needed to make the story feel authentic. What I couldn't see was that all those details were extremely boring and nobody cares. Stories are driven by the characters in them, not the weather, not the terrain, and not the history of its various locations.

All that being said, I think Ridgell is a good writer. His dialogue is crisp and a few of the scenes involving the gangsters were done well. The book is over-burdened by some manic need to clobber readers over the head with unnecessary details about the setting. Clearly, Ridgell knows Micronesia. I'd challenge him to write a story set in the place without it being about the place.

Bernard J. Schaffer
Reviewer for Bookpleasures
Author of Women and Other Monsters

This is a novel that will appeal most to Peace Corps Volunteers who have served in Micronesia and people who are thinking about becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer in Micronesia. For the latter group, this book should be required reading; for the former, it will be a wonderful reconnection with a distant past. At the same time, what I like most about the book--the astonishingly detailed, vividly recalled memories of what it was like to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Micronesia--is the very thing that keeps it from being much of an action/adventure story. At least for me. The result is that the "present day" adventure, with its obligatory feats of derring-do, seems like a forced, barely credible intrusion on the real story. The time difference also does not help. Published in 2009, what is supposed to be the primary story--the murder of the main character's wife, his revenge for that murder, his subsequent flight from the consequences of that revenge--is set in the mid-80s, when the book seems to have been written. But much of the book recalls the author's Peace Corps life in the early 70s. So much so, that the "main" story often seems like an inconvenient intrusion on that earlier story. Maybe that is why I find it odd and slightly creepy for the 40-something hero to be lusting after island girls so soon after his wife's murder: the 40-something husband-killer suddenly seems to be acting more like the 20-something single PCV. And they both seem to be acting like the really creepy character on Polowat, Father Dick, the Jesuit missionary priest. Questions of right and wrong, guilt and innocence, the validity of religion, and whether or not it belongs in the islands at all, especially after the last-minute conversion of an old reprobate friend of the hero's into a mindless, fundamentalist Bible-thumper also find their way into the mix, not always convincingly. On the other hand, for those of us who thought we would never find a writer who knows what it is like to see a sea turtle killed and cooked in its shell, or a writer who has experienced infections and dysentery in the tropics, or the joy of intestinal parasites, or the plague of mosquitoes and rats breeding unchecked, or even zoris getting sucked off your feet in ankle-deep mud, and yet a writer who has an obvious, deep, and abiding love for Micronesia and its people: well, here is the writer we have been longing to read. Even if you never managed to get to, let alone spend time in, all the places the central character runs to--Majuro, Pohnpei, Chuuk, the Outer Islands of Chuuk and Yap, and even Yap itself on convenient canoe voyages from Polowat to Pik to Satawal and a similarly convenient rendezvous with a field trip ship at Satawal--you'll enjoy reading about them here. If you have been there, you'll be glad to know you weren't just imagining those truly exotic places. And when you've finished reading this book, give "Bending to the Trade Winds," the author's charming collection of short stories about the Peace Corps experience in Micronesia, a try. I think you'll like both a lot.