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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific book!,
By
This review is from: Relative Danger (Hardcover)
The story starts in Singapore in 1948, but most of the action takes place in present day locales. Douglas Pearce is a Pottsville, Pennsylvania, native who loses his job at the local brewery just in time to embark on an Indiana Jones-like adventure, in search of the killer of his Uncle Russell, the black sheep of the Pearce family, who was murdered in 1948 Singapore.
He finds himself confounded in Casablanca, confined in Cairo, bogged down in Bahrain, and celebrated in Singapore. Benoit had me hooked from page one, and kept me riveted all the way through. I picked this one up because I had recenty been to Singapore, and thought it might be interesting to read about the city in a novel. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing! Benoit has Singapore down pat. His descriptions made me want to visit the other places Doug visited, as well. My husband loved this book, too. We both laughed out loud at some passages, and the solution to the mystery wasn't obvious until very close to the end. I'm looking forward to Mr. Benoit's next book!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Three Chambered Heart,
By
This review is from: Relative Danger (Hardcover)
"Relative Danger" is a mystery with a three chambered heart. First is Doug Pearce's hunt for answers about a long lost uncle who came to a bad end in a hotel room in 1948 Singapore. Doug is about the least likely sleuth one might ever encounter in the genre. He is an "innocent abroad" with a nice earthen hue. His only credentials are a blood relationship to the victim and (thanks to being laid off from a brewery job) enough free time to look into the case. His dependency on "the kindness of strangers" begins in chapter one with a mysterious benefactor financing his journey overseas. It continues person-to-person to the very end of the story with a timely arrival of Singapore authorities and media. This person-to-person connection makes the figures we meet along the way real, even recognizable.
All points in between Morocco and Singapore are connected in the second beating lobe of this story's heart by a hunt for a blood red diamond that chases through some of the most exotic and interesting places on Earth. The taste, smell and feel of each waypoint is so richly told that a it's hard to resist the urge to check the passport between chapters for freshly inked visa stamps. The most delicious pulse of this story's heart comes from its third lobe, Aisha Al-Kady, a woman as exotic and sensual as the environment she fills. In Arabic, Aisha means life. In "Relative Danger", Aisha means life AND to have it more abundantly. She's so strongly drawn that dents in her halo are real, the beauty bone-deep, the sex exuberant, and the bullets deadly. This isn't the kind of story intended to be heady or profound. No, what earns "Relative Danger" its chops is the way it's told. This is a story with compelling prose, a gut-feel reality, an unexpected twist ending, and a delightfully Southern pace. It is an Edgar Allan Poe Awards® 2005 Nominee for Best First Novel By An American Author. It is an impressive first outing for Charles Benoit. I look forward to more.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good beach read. Entertaining but lacks depth.,
By World Traveler (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Relative Danger (Paperback)
This is a good book. I was entertained. The author is smart and has an eloquent writing style. However, the characters lack depth, the three exotic countries the character travels to are covered only superficially, and the venues visited are the most popular tourist traps. It's as if the author traveled to Morocco, Egypt and Singapore for only about three days each, and then decided to write a fiction novel based on his limited experience. I studied in Egypt and live in Singapore now, so I was hoping for a little greater insight into these countries. I would also rate the book PG, because the action is mildly intense and no one dies. If you are looking for a gritty fiction thriller that takes place in an exotic locale and presents an Asian country with depth and insight drawn from years of in-country experience, check out The Opportunists by Yohann de Silva. Here's the link: The Opportunists: A Novel
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