3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A slightly different track, December 22, 2002
This review is from: The Prince of Deadly Weapons: A Novel (Hardcover)
Though not quite as good as his previous two books, THE PRICE OF DEADLY WEAPONS is one of the better crime fiction books of the year. The intersecting cast of characters can get confusing, but the payoff is worth the trip. It seems that Boston Teran is trying something new here but is staying within the "world" that we have come to expect from him. I would recommend reading his previous books in order (God is a Bullet & Never Count out the Dead) before taking on this one -- you'll see why. Boston Teran is someone to watch and read.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Slightly Off the Mark, January 12, 2003
This review is from: The Prince of Deadly Weapons: A Novel (Hardcover)
Boston Teran's third novel, "The Prince of Deadly Weapons", is a complex and at times confusing tale of redemption and revenge. Six months following the assumed suicide of Taylor Greene, the son of a wealthy developer, an enigmatic Dane Rudd shows up to attend a memorial service for Greene. Taylor Greene was an organ donor, and Rudd, as it turns out, is the recipient of Taylor's corneas. The mysterious Rudd sticks around, endearing himself to the dead boy's father, and entangling himself in an unofficial investigation of Greene's death.
Unlike the parched and barren southern California wasteland in which Teran set his first two blockbuster mystery-thrillers ("God is a Bullet" and Never Count Out the Dead"), "Deadly Weapons" is set in the more-lush, but none-the-less barren, California Sacramento River delta. The delta is an overlooked region of the west, full of contradictions and extremes - a land virtually lost in time within the shadow of San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Teran is true to his literary accolades in painting a vivid picture of the people and geography of the delta. But unlike the his first two efforts, in which the brutality of the characters, deeds, and settings literally grab the reader by the throat refusing to let go, "Deadly Weapons" tends to meander into too much a somber study of lost lives and missed opportunities. One can't help feeling that Teran tried to hard to make this novel "important", and in the process blunted the edge of what should have been another creative, dark, and compelling tale.
All things considered, though, this is a book worth reading. Teran still demonstrates a unique literary talent, spinning the most simple phase or event in an engaging cross between prose and poetry. Despite its shortcomings, Boston Teran can write, and I'll look forward to his next installment.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A twisted pleasure to read that's very hard to put down!, November 16, 2002
This review is from: The Prince of Deadly Weapons: A Novel (Hardcover)
"Write what you know" is not a bad bit of advice for a writer, especially if what you know is that particular neighborhood in the great metropolis of the human psyche through which sweetness and light pass only after making a wrong turn, and then only with the windows rolled up, the doors locked, 911 on the cell phone speed dial, and one thumb poised on the send button.
After reading Boston Teran's work, I'd lay odds that he keeps a pied-a-terre in that very same neighborhood, a place he can drop in on when life gets too cheery. Fans of noir fiction should take no small amount of pleasure in the knowledge that Teran has found a room with such a deliciously disturbing view.
Boston Teran's latest, THE PRINCE OF DEADLY WEAPONS, delivers the award-winning author's trademark cast of finely drawn, deeply flawed characters, murky morality, and flat-out nasty violence, all presented at a carefully metered pace that maintains just the right anxious buzz from first page to last.
THE PRINCE OF DEADLY WEAPONS is at its core an exploration of deception, served up in a cornucopia of flavors, each with its own particular motivation, and each with its own unique toll. Whether the motivation is greed, lust, love, truth, or redemption, there is a price to be paid, and there's no running out on the bill.
In the story, a federal agent is brutally murdered in a cheap roadside motel while waiting for a meeting with Taylor Greene, the son of Nathan, a wealthy California businessman whose extracurricular activities have drawn the attention of the Feds. Days later, Taylor dies in an apparent suicide. On the eve of a memorial service for Taylor, Dane Rudd arrives, a mysterious and charismatic young man with a remarkable story: corneal transplants have restored eyesight lost in a viscous random assault. The organ donor is none other than Taylor Greene, a fact that binds Dane to the people in Taylor's troubled life, and to their ambitions. Dane soon finds himself up to his neck in dirty dealings and familial dysfunction, compelled to learn the truth behind Taylor's death by vision that is restored by far more than a surgical procedure.
Boston Teran has a special knack for the down-and-dirty, fueled apparently by his real life. In notes on his website, he describes the inspiration for various elements of the three books he has published to date, much of it drawn from a childhood of the sort that in different hands would find its expression in fifty minute installments on a therapist's couch.
But if life has indeed dealt Boston Teran a lousy hand, he has played it masterfully, and split the pot with his lucky readers. His characters are possessed of the kind of street-level realism that is the hallmark of well-written crime fiction, and his story lines tangle and weave the various personalities in juxtapositions that drive the narrative on a combustible mixture of foreboding, dread, and inevitability. THE PRINCE OF DEADLY WEAPONS, like Boston Teran's previous work, is a twisted pleasure to read. When you can put it down, you're happy to shut all that nasty business between the covers.
--- Reviewed by Bob Rhubart
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