Customer Reviews

Never Count Out the Dead

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

With all the subtlety of a sledge hammer, Boston Teran's second novel again stuns and shocks, while spinning a story that is nearly impossible to put down. As in his first novel (God is a Bullet), Teran sets the scene in the gritty southern California desert wasteland. The bleakness of the desert diners and roadhouses proves the perfect setting for a new cast of Teran characters: hard women, bad cops, an agoraphobic writer. Unlike "Bullet", in which sometimes Teran's overly rich language gets in the way of his story, the prose in "Dead" is lean, tight, and gripping. If you like the happy plastic people found in James Patterson and other popular "thriller" writers, either of Boston Teran's novels will likely disturb and possibly offend your senses. But if you're looking for an in-your-face, by-the-throat, modern tale of noir and raw-boned terror, THIS is your ride.

Boston Teran's NEVER COUNT OUT THE DEAD is an amazing and enviable feat for any writer, but a wildly successful accomplishment for a novelist fixated on the seedier byways of human relationships. There is not one badly drawn character in this novel, not one implausible moment, but Teran is most successful with Dee and Shay Storey, a pair who make Clytemnestra and Elektra seem like Girl Scouts. Dee, especially, is the sort of character that any actress of a certain age would give her capped eye teeth to play. This is a fully formed living, breathing pathology, wholly unreedemed and as elemental as lava. I would love to see this book on the big screen. It would make an absolutely terrific (in every sense) movie.

This is the sort of book that's usually right up my alley. I love the darker, grimmer side of crime writing. James Ellroy's one of my favorites. But I just couldn't get into Boston Teran's latest. His characters are tragic and haunted by life. They make grand speeches about how pointless everything is. Dee Storey, the hellish monster/mother at the center of the story, should be much more frightening/horrifying than she is. For whatever reason, the characters just lie there, flat on the page, never truly coming to life. This could have been a great, great book, but just doesn't quite make it.

In 1987, Baker, California Sheriff John Sully is to testify against Charlie Foreman on a drug charge. Charlie conspires with a gang of thugs to destroy John's reputation even as one of the gang plans to kill him. Teenager Shay Storey obtains John's help in taking her back to a relative in the deserted Mojave Preserve. However, Shay's mother shoots John. They bury him in a grave, but he survives. John's reputation has also been trashed as they plant solid collaborated proof that he sold coke. A helpless John disappears into the night.

Almost eleven years later, New Weekly reporter Landshark calls Victor Trey, a quiet person living in El Paso. Landshark informs Victor that he knows he is actually John and has evidence that points towards a criminal conspiracy to desecrate his name. John returns to Los Angeles with one thing on his mind: revenge.

As with his previous modern day noir, GOD IS A BULLET, Boston Teran paints a portrait of the uglier side of humanity in NEVER COUNT OUT THE DEAD. The story line breaks into two related tales. The first part centers on the success of the conspiracy against John; the latter segment focuses on his belated counterattack. This novel is excellent as the audience can see inside the heads of the key players to better understand whom did what and why. Mr. Teran owns the sub-genre with his gritty underbelly look at the success of dregs and drones in our graying world.

Harriet Klausner

I love, just love, the style he writes in. I don't agree with the critcism that this novel, nor his first, got for the style of the prose. It's simply marvellous. it's unusual, quirky, eccentric, casts wonderful images into the mind, and is just plain genius. I cant get enough of it. You have to read every word to get the full brilliant picture that his writing is trying to paint, otherwise you can get lost.

The characters are great, although there are many of them, and if you dont read concentratingly, you may get them confused in your own mind. Also, they don't jump off the page with realism as much as those in God is A Bullet did. (In particular Dee Storey, the murderous mother, who is not as scary and terrifying as she is made out. Most of the time, she seems just to be empty threats.) But Shay Storey is a brilliant character (somewhat similar to Case Hardin in GIAB) as is John Victor Sully, whose story of revenge and resurrection is the main theme of this book.

The plotting is taut, the atmosphere of the book is a cloud covered night, and the tone is as black as black.

Boston Teran's books are simply marvellous (All two of them!) i cannot wait to see where this young author takes himself to within a few years time.

In its way, this is a really extravagant tale. The story is set in a tense, sweaty Southern California landscape peopled by killers, hustlers and the ordinary walking-wounded. This mythic evil-in-paradise world was first explored by Raymond Chandler, but this book is Raymond Chandler on speed. As in Chandler's books the Southern California landscape is evoked so strongly -the hot, sweet aroma of the chaparral, the gritty, mineral taste of sand- that it becomes a virtually independent character looming over the rest of the story. The book is shot through with seething anger; each character is haunted by memories of loss and betrayal. At times rage drives the writing almost out of control; the author's prose-style is simultaneously propulsive and twisty, reading some of the author's sentences is like driving too fast on a curvy mountain road. I found myself crashing at times, but the style perfectly suits the swift, violent nature of the story.
But there's more to the book than this. I won't recount much of the plot here. Suffice to say that at the start of the book, a California police officer is ambushed and left for dead. The policeman, John Victor Sully, must dig himself out of a shallow grave to survive. This is a bad beginning, and the tale that follows becomes more twisted still, with corrupt politicians rubbing elbows and sharing spit with sociopathic criminals, but it soon develops that loss and betrayal are not what the book is really about. The author is more interested in what comes after the loss and betrayal. What do we do to move on? Sully's ambush in fact frames the whole story. It's a story of survival, but more than survival also. John Victor, and others he meets, must somehow find the courage to seek -and find- healing and redemption, even amidst the greed and corruption around them.

A style reminiscent of James Ellroy saps the reader's strength, only to be redeemed by outstanding action sequences. If the author can control the excess, the readers will follow. Some characters have vocabularies that do not fit the resumes. I'll come back for more.

This writer can get you inside the head of the characters. And these are real characters. The emotions are raw, the actions are outrageous, but the humanity definitely shows through all the grit and grime.
With a mom like Dee, Shay Storey can definitely use some new folks to place her faith in. Vic may just be the guy, even if she did leave him buried in the desert when they first met.
Whether trying to claw their way up or cover up a crime or two, the associated characters are presented in a way that makes you feel them, grit your teeth for them.
I loved Boston Teran's first book, God is a Bullet, and this one doesn't disappoint.

I find this style of writing a little too hard for me to like. I read an average of 8 books a month, mostly crime and detective stories, so I liked the story he told. But I found myself rereading sentences and whole paragraphs to try to get to the meat of the thing. It just didn't flow for me. I'm happier with the get-right-down-to-it writing styles of Robert B. Parker and Ed McBain. I hope this writer keeps writing, but cuts back a little on the odd phrases.

more meaphores and similies than any author on earth does not stop teran from following up his first book "god is a bullit" with another fast-paced, hard-hitting and creative work. characters we hate and love are waiting to sweep us up on this brutal rollercoaster ride that doesn't give up. from first page to last page; you can't put it down.