Customer Reviews

Legally Dead: A Novel

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

 

 

I really liked this book . . . up to a point. It was well-written, the characters were likable, and the plot was different. But when it came to winding up the story line, I found the bad guy's motive simply unbelievable and his tactics far fetched at best. And -- not to give anything away -- the abrupt ending was startling, it was as though Buchanan was either tired of writing or didn't know where to take the story so she just quit writing. I hate to invest time and money into a book, only to be forced to use my imagination to give it a proper ending.

In Edna Buchanan's "Legally Dead," United States Marshall Michael Venturi has helped place a number of individuals in the Witness Protection Program. Venturi discovers that a mobster, a star witness whose testimony is considered crucial in an upcoming union corruption case, may be committing heinous acts in the New Hampshire town where he was relocated by the feds. When Michael insists that he and his colleagues have a moral obligation to keep this predator from harming innocent victims, his boss orders him to back off. Conscience-stricken, Venturi takes matters into his own hands. When Michael is fired, he is not as dispirited as someone else might be under similar circumstances. Being a U. S. Marshall had lost its allure; the job had become "disappointing, boring, and often absurd." Mike is financially well off, thanks to the huge sum of money he received in a wrongful-death settlement after a tragic accident took the life of his wife and their unborn child. He decides to relocate to Florida and, along with his old Marine buddy, Danny, starts a new project--helping people in trouble assume new identities after faking their deaths. Michael's resourceful mother-in-law, Vicki, whom he adores, assists their clients in acquiring the skills that they will need to reinvent themselves.

"Legally Dead" might have worked better had the author stuck to her central theme. She throws in unnecessary characters and extraneous subplots, such as those dealing with Vicki's wayward and self-destructive son, Sidney, and Danny's roving eye (he is the married father of three with another child on the way). The main story line is preposterous. Buchanan would have us believe that one after another, people are coming out of the woodwork who are so desperate that they are willing to throw away their old lives and start anew in a foreign country. None of Michael's clients are particularly well-drawn. The dialogue, for the most part, is cutesy and artificial. Worse yet, the author brings her book to an absurd conclusion with a series of murders that are mysteriously connected to Michael's venture. Trite writing such as "her tawny skin was luminous, her perfect teeth flashed white" do not help matters. For those readers who like plenty of action, no matter how far-fetched, this novel may provide passable entertainment. Those who prefer that even a thriller should have a semblance of realism would be better off skipping this one.

The plot and the story are mildly compelling. The ex-military hero was less realistic and more self-satisfied by far than is usual in such novels. The bureaucratic underpinnings of the various law enforcement agencies involved in the story were moronically written. I'm an Edna Buchanan fan and in my opinion this is the weakest book by far that she has written, the Corpse Had a Familiar Face being the best. It's a cheap Lee Child-Jack Reacher knockoff. Avoid

It has been a few years since I read Edna Buchanan's other books, but I remember enjoying them a lot, so I was really disappointed when I downloaded this book from Audible. It hadn't been reviewed yet, so the whole time I forced myself to listen to it I kept writing my review in my head, hoping to prevent others from making the same mistake I had in purchasing it. I lost track of all the eye-rollingly awful parts I wanted to mention, but it would take too many pages anyway. The plot is like something from a comic book intended for 12 to 15 year-old boys--cartoonish good and bad guys, many and varied life or death situations, unnecessary characters, and details that go nowhere and add nothing. It reads like it was pieced together from a bunch of disparate 9th grade creative writing papers-- "Just write a ten-page crime story, kids, and turn it in by tomorrow."

A US Marshall in the Witness Protection Program becomes disillusioned when one of his scumbag "clients" is relocated, his testimony against another scumbag pending, and commits not one, but three different crimes after relocation. The protagonist, Michael Venturi, suspecting the crook of two of the crimes, travels to check him out and catches him with evidence in his freezer and coincidentally in the middle of another, completely different kind of crime. Venturi is able to intervene, spectacularly and anonymously, so that the crook is caught for all three crimes. Venturi does something with the third crime's proceeds that is totally indefensible and unnecessary to the furtherance of the "plot." Of course, Witsec was so focused on using this guy's testimony against some organized crime figure that they didn't even care what else the witness was up to as long as he was able to testify. Suspecting that Venturi was involved in exposing the witness's post-relo fiendishl activities, his soulless government bosses basically drum him out of the Service. Never mind that two of the crimes are so egregious that no law enforcement officer, I don't care who else he is trying to nail, would ever allow them to be ignored or covered up just to preserve a witness's testimony. Never mind that even Sammy the Bull wouldn't have risked getting involved with the final crime, at least until after he'd testified and could go a little more low profile. Why the third crime, anyway? The relocated witness was so evil this unrelated crime was unnecessary , unless one of the 9th graders was promised his submission would be incorporated somewhere in the final story.

Anyway, our perfect hero quits and uses the MILLIONS he conveniently happens to have, untouched lawsuit proceeds (don't even ask), to relocate truly "deserving" folks, and the ridiculousness continues, branching out into threads that often go nowhere. Some of these lucky relos don't even have a especially good or believable reason to disappear (a rock star, weary of the inconveniences of his fame?--yeah, creating his new identity is worth going to jail for), and Venturi and his pals give no thought to collateral damage. Authorities waste time and money on investigations into the "deaths" and no one even mentions the fact that insurance companies will have to pay out millions of dollars to cover resulting claims. But, hey, that's just free money, isn't it? The dialogue is silly and inappropriate for a lot of the situations--joking and joshing when people start to die and Venturi and his co-conspirators are close to being exposed . The one-dimensional tough guy Latino military buddy has a roving eye and the truly annoying habit of repeating the word "Bro." Bad enough in print--try LISTENING to it over and over, as read by a truly bad narrator. "Bro, tell my wife I love her, bro" Followed by, "It's not your time. Your name isn't on that big blackboard in the sky." Edna, oh, Edna.

Minor point, but I was irritated that former Marine Venturi didn't seem to know what an Osprey was--the plane/helicopter aircraft that his "bro" always wanted to fly. I knew what it was in the mid 90's, and I am a middle-aged female from corporate America. Of course, an Osprey must inexplicably appear to whisk said "bro" away at some point. I could go on and on. I am starting to suspect that Edna has a teenage kid she allowed to publish his/her first book under her name. The plot was all over the place, the characters and situations cartoonish, and the ending was so dumb it still makes my teeth ache. I don't think the author had decided whom to make the real villain until she got to the end--it just had to be someone really unexpected. Have to admit, I didn't see it coming, because it was so LUDICROUS--the villain, the villain's reasons for the havoc wreaked, etc. Let's throw in the Russion mob, shall we? Conveniently, the villain is the type who explains, in great detail, everything that happened and why, since Venturi is to die anyway.

I wasn't expecting great literature. I just wanted a fun read (listen) that didn't insult my intelligence. I had to immediately check out a Val McDermid thriller to try to flush the memory away. Didn't work. Seriously, this is the worst book I have read or listened to in years, and I hate myself for finishing it. Sorry Edna, you have lost me for good.

This book started out well and I liked the premise. But as the story progressed, it became harder and harder for me to suspend my disbelief. The very first "new" client that Venturi takes on is just preposterous. Who would try to kill themself in this manner? Also, I found it hard to believe that many Americans could learn foreign brogues (British, Scottish, Irish) well enough to pass as natives in such a short amount of time. By the time we got to the gunfight at the OK Panama Corral and its aftermath, my credulity was strained to the point where I just started skimming to make it to the end of the book.

Miami writer Buchanan's new series takes so long to reach the grabbing point the readers will be getting restless. This one sure was. I had to check the jacket copy to make sure there really was a crisis coming.

And Buchanan does tie things together in the end. Sort of. The beginning is pretty exciting too. Nice guy, tough guy Michael Venturi, former special ops and then a marshal in the US witness protection program, grows thoroughly disillusioned with his job when he discovers his latest mobster/informant/pedophile client is up to his old tricks and two little girls in a quiet New Hampshire town are missing. And his bosses don't want to hear about it (This seemed far-fetched. I hope.).

So Venturi goes to New Hampshire and takes care of business. All very satisfying. Then Venturi quits his job and moves to Miami where he and an old buddy set up a business helping a series of deserving people start a new life by faking their deaths. This is where the story begins to bog down, client after client. But eventually Buchanan gets to the point - a real killer targeting Venturi's clients - and the action revs up to Special Forces strength.

Author of the Britt Montero series, former crime reporter Buchanan's gutsy characters and steamy Miami settings have made many of her 17 books bestsellers. If fans can hold on until the story jells, they may find themselves well entertained.

U.S. Marshal Michael Venturi oversees aspects of the Federal Witness Protection Program. He knows some of his patrons are monsters, but evidence surfaces that one of his clients, mobster Gino Salvi is sexually attacking young girls before he kills them in Flemington, New Hampshire.

When Salvi participates in an armored car robbery, Venturi is fired for not watching the gangster closer. Venturi, accompanied by an old dog, head to Florida to open up an agency that stages phony deaths and new identities. Business is booming as many people seek a LEGALLY DEAD solution to their woes.

While Britt Montero takes a well deserved breather, Edna Buchanan provides a delightful opening act of what looks like will be a wonderful unique series. The clients are a variety of folks with differing motives to employ Michael's services; they make the tale and his profession seem genuine as not all of them have dire straits to escape from. Venturi proves capable of holding the exciting refreshing story line together. Readers will relish how the clever lead protagonist turns the trick of changing his customers from the living to the LEGALLY DEAD in a fun suspense filled thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Buchanan has a real pageturner here in Legally Dead. Disillusioned with finding new lives for bad guys who will be witnesses against supposedly worse guys, things come to a head for U.S. Marshall Michael Venturi when one of those he has relocated commits terrible crimes. After leaving government employ, he uses the skills he has developed to help people who really deserve a new start. Things really spin out of control, however, when people start to die all over again. My only disappointment was the identity of the bad guy. While I'll confess it to be plausible, it wasn't particularly interesting. Still, this is a great book. Not great literature, but a book is good at what it set out to do--entertain.

This book caught me right off. Liked the plot and the different little storis and characters.

THE TEASER

"Legally Dead" begins with a teaser (or "prolog"), a loathsome device designed to catch potential purchasers browsing at bookstores, but usually only confusing readers. This particular teaser is particularly confusing as it only describes relatively mundane activities of an unidentified guy in a small New Hampshire town, lusting after an unidentified girl. Most readers are probably left wondering, "This ain't Miami?---where is the heck is Britt Montero?". Since this is the first non-Britt Montero in a long stretch, it would have been better for Buchanan to have identified her protagonist and his situration right from the start. On the positive side, it isn't long before the identity of the "guy" and his situation are explained

THE SETUP

"Legally Dead" lacks the usual setup (followed by development etc.), unless you consider the first 3/4 of the novel to be the setup. This "extended setup" consists of several semi-unrelated stories, in which Michael Venturi quits the U.S. Marshall service largely over their protection of criminals (who continue to prey on the public) while awaiting their testimony in court, and afterward in reward for that testimony. With the help of his CIA agent friend Danny, Mike's mother-in-law Vicky, and Mike's girlfriend physician Kari, Mike undertakes to privately create new identities for individuals who need to disappear. This effort is financed with the settlement for his wife's accidental death. Then suddenly, people Mike resettled while a marshal are being killed, and he is the chief suspect.

CAVEATS

The only significant shortcoming is that the bad guy's motive is very weak, and his solution is highly implausible. For example, Mike has no living relatives--if he were to simply disappear without a trace, the bad guy's problem would be solved, and much neater. The alleged solution would not necessarily resolve the problem, even if successful.

"Venturi" is the name of an real inventor, but the device bearing his name could be defined as "a device which sucks". Undoubtably Buchanan intended "Mike Venturi" to be a sexy name for an action cop---but the name just sounds silly to me, a literary device which sucks.

The mid-point get a little redundant, as similar stories are presented, but that's pretty much unavoidable. The ending, although predictable and expected, is abrupt. An short "afterword" would have been appreciated.

SNIDE COMMENT #1

It annoys the living heck out of me that the narrators of the audio-book versions of Buchanan's novels cannot correctly pronounce the names of South Florida communities, nor common words like "conch", "snook", or "pompano". For example, the latter (both a South Florida city and a sport fish) is "pomp'-pan-no", not "poe-pan'-o".

SNIDE COMMENT #2

If one is flying from Miami to Andros, Freeport is very far to the north. A small plane on such a route, in trouble, would never be directed to Freeport, and particularly would never "make a right turn to 270 degrees to Freeport". 270 degrees is due west (straight back to Miami). Buchanan seems to be "geographically impaired", making similar errors in earlier novels.

THE VERDICT

Even with the teaser and caveats, this is a very good mystery, masterfully written, filled with fascinating likeable characters, fast action, suspense, mystery. Everything you could want in a mystery novel.