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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Tres Is Back But Something Or Someone Important Is Missing, October 4, 2007
I have been reading Riordan's Tres Navarre novels since the publication of "Big Red Tequila". Obviously, I like them enough to remain interested but after reading "Rebel Island", I have concluded that I miss some things from the past. I miss Tres' wicked almost irreverent sense of humor and wise cracking that was so prevalent in "Big Red Tequila" but has since become less and less visible. And I clearly miss Ralph Arguello whose absence leaves a huge void in the psychological and moral development of the novels.
In "Rebel Island", Tres, his wife, Maia, and brother, Garrett , are trapped in a dilapidated hotel by a powerful hurricane. It is a classic "we're trapped in this place and one of us is a murderer" story that quickly prompts us to start imagining who each character might "really" be in order to guess the ending. Along the way we get mysteries from the past interlocked with the mysteries of today. We also get an old hotel blown apart, hidden passageways, mysteries in an old lighthouse, red herrings, and, of course, trapped guests who are never who they claim to be.
While the mystery was entertaining enough, it never really grabbed me...I never reached that "gosh, I can't wait to turn the page feeling". Maybe this was due to the failure of Riordan to fully evolve the characters--I just didn't care about them. Some come and go so quickly only to resurface later that you need a score sheet handy.
I will stick with Tres Navarre a bit longer but I find the things I miss overriding the things that are left. For example, is anyone else getting tired of Garrett's schtick? He adds little beyond exasperation to the storylines and I'd gladly trade 2 Garretts for one Ralph.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Claustrophobic tension makes for a solid Tres mystery, September 16, 2007
Rick Riordan is proving himself a master of what I've come to think of as the "claustrophobic thriller." "Cold Springs" particularly impressed me with its psychological pressure-cooker of emotions and repressed secrets. "Rebel Island" takes that a step further, with almost all the action in the story taking place inside a crumbling old hotel in the middle of a hurricane. In that sense, this story is like a classic English country-house mystery, where you know from the start that "one of us in this room is ... The Killer" (dum dum dum!). As Riordan's fans will expect, though, the author gives the genre a distinctive South Texas twist that makes "Rebel Island" one of the best Tres Navarre stories in some time.
One of Riordan's storytelling distinctions has always been the twisting plot, with suspicion pointing first one way and then another. As bodies turned up in these pages, I started making a list of who I thought the killer was. By the time I finally twigged to the right answer (satisfyingly close to the end of the book), I had identified and rejected three other candidates. And even then, the author had one or two final surprises in store.
Now that Riordan has been doing it for a couple of novels, I'm more used to his new convention of only narrating some of the story in Tres' first-person view. As with "Mission Road," this technique not only lets other characters participate in the story more fully (always in third-person), but also gives us a glimpse inside the mind of the still-unidentified killer. As I've noted before, telling the story this way necessarily means we get less of Tres than we might otherwise like, but it does help increase the tension and make the story more well-rounded.
In addition to being entertaining and well-written mystery novels, each of the Tres Navarre books has chronicled important changes in the character's life. The changes that have occurred between the last title and this one, however, are perhaps the biggest yet. Tres' long-term fans won't find many of the familiar characters that have made up his supporting cast to this point. As always, though, the case here ends up tugging on significant strings from Tres' own life. It's satisfying to know Tres is not static for Riordan -- the character continues to evolve and mature, and there's still more for readers to learn about his past, as well as his future.
After this fast moving (I read it in an afternoon and a morning) and satisfying story, I am once again looking forward to whatever the author has in store for us next.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not bad, but not great., September 27, 2007
*warning--spoiler about previous Riordan novel included in this review*
Rick Riordan is an excellent writer. His Tres Navarre series is one of my all-time faves. This one, however, isn't at the top of my list when it comes to this series. It's not a terrible book; it's just not quite as engaging as the others in the series.
This one takes place on an island as a hurricane roars through. The mystery is complex enough, detail-wise, but I kind of knew who the "villain" was about halfway in. The characters I already liked were all there (Tres himself, his wife Maya, his brother Garrett), but this book kind of suffered from the loss of Tres' best friend, who (spoiler!) was killed in the last book in the series. I miss Ralph (Ralphas) and the way his interactions with Tres really spiced up the previous novels. Ralph could always be counted on to really pump up the moral grey areas. Adios, Ralphas. You are missed more than you can imagine.
In this book, Tres has retired from his previous job as a PI and is teaching full-time at a local university. The action of this novel throws him back into investigatory mode, but it seems that while it comes naturally to him, he isn't really into it. As a result, neither was I.
Oy.
Well, I still really enjoy Tres. Hopefully he'll be a bit more thrilling next time around.
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