Customer Reviews

White Sister: A Shane Scully Novel

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Cannell is an interesting writer and his novels are always worth reading.

Shane Scully is an LAPD detective. His wife is in the LAPD also in a supervisory position. His tight little comfortable world is about to become very unraveled when his wife fails to be where she said she would and her automobile is found with an LAPD cop in it, killed execution style with her handcuffs on him. She is missing and later calls him to indicate she is sorry for what she has done and that there is only one way out...a BANG follows the message.

He figures out where she is and she is transported to a hospital, her life hannging by a thread.

Scully then proceeds to break most laws in the book with respect to investigating the situation and is eventually himself arrested.

How this scenario is set up is eventually and slowly revealed and I won't share any secrets except to say that you know this writer is not going to have one of his stars heading to prison for life. How that is avoided is a tight, frothy read.

A new character is revealed in this book....name of John Bodine...you won't forget him.

Part One: The part you can read if you haven't read the novel

White Sister is the third Shane Scully novel I've read and it is easily the worst (I enjoyed Cold Hit and Vertical Coffin). I was surprised to find that I'm the only reader so far to trash the novel. (I guess I'll be getting a lot of negative responses to my review)

I'm a fan of Shane Scully and I like Cannell's writing (which is why the novel warrants two stars rather than one) but the bottom line is - this is a pretty lousy novel. My biggest complaint is that the novel's premise makes no sense. Scully operates so far outside the law that it's as if Cannell were writing a script for the next James Cameron or Michael Bay summer blockbuster. Shane's wife gets shot and spends most of the novel in a coma and even though we have a pretty good idea how things are going to work out, we have to suffer though pages of contrived melodrama. Add to this a collection of cartoonish rap music characters and a silly shoot out in the Nevada desert and you have a novel to avoid.

Part Two: ***Don't read the rest of this review unless you've read the novel or you don't care if I ruin the plot for you (although Cannell ruined it long before I got involved)***

First off, let me say that I don't mind if a novel is a little unrealistic. I don't care if the hero has a gun that never runs out of bullets or the killer doesn't die no matter how many times he is shot, stabbed, and bludgeoned. What really irks me is when characters in a novel behave in ways that don't make any sense and is clearly an artificial construct of the author to support a plot that can't possibly stand on its own.

1. The emails between Alexa and Dark Angel are pivotal to the plot, but they are ridiculous. If they are worried about someone reading the email messages, why not just call from a pay phone? It would be safer and allow for a better exchange of information. There was no reason to think the Malugas were bugging phones or screening emails (or even had the skill to do such a thing). Even then, the code wouldn't have done much good. Shane didn't understand the code initially because he wasn't familiar with the names of the rap music acts and rap slang, but if the Malugas had read the emails they would have understood them immediately. So why bother?

The answer: Cannell needs Shane to find the emails and then doubt his wife. It allows everyone to think that Dark Angel is a bad cop and that his murder is linked to an affair with Alexa. This means that Shane is the only person who can clear Alexa's good name.

2. The Chief of Police knows that Dark Angel is a good cop working under cover and that the affair with Alexa is a fabrication, but he holds his tongue. Why? Because he can't compromise another under cover cop in the Maluga organization. BUT this makes no sense. If the Malugas killed Dark Angel because they knew he was an undercover cop reporting to Alexa how could it hurt to reveal this information in the press? It wouldn't be news to the Malugas. They already knew Dark Angel was a cop. The other undercover cop may be in danger (since Dark Angel brought him in to the Maluga operation) but he was in danger the moment the Maluga's found out who Dark Angel was.

The answer: Cannell needs everyone in the Department to be against Shane so he can do his rogue cop thing. If the Department admitted that Dark Angel was undercover it would defuse the racial angle, remove the suspicion from Alexa and allow the investigating cops to turn their attention to the Malugas. If this happened, Shane could go to the hospital and be with his wife, staying out of trouble. Not much of a novel there.

These are my two biggest beefs but trust me the list is endless. My advice: Don't read it. The other two Scully novels I've read are much better. White Sister is a contrived mess.

While I have always thought that Stephen Cannell's "Shane Scully" novels were easily beyond plausibility, I have always enjoyed them just the same. White Sister, however, was a chore to get through. I often found myself skipping to the next paragraph or two each time he gets his "soliloquy" on. With astounding frequency, the main character begins to wax poetic about ______ (you fill in the blank) to the point that you expect him to break into a West-Side-Story-esque song and dance.

The "I know I lied to you five times and broke my promises to you three times in the past 10 minutes, but trust me this time." bit got quite old.

There were a lot of little worn out constructs and clichés used repeatedly, time after time, over and over again, and repetitively throughout the book.

I'm a big fan of the Shane Scully series, but White Sister is by far my favorite so far! Cannell just gets better and better as he develops his characters and, especially in this novel, really delves into the emotional relationship between Shane and his wife Alexa. I also LOVE the John Bodine character. He's so funny, touching, and at the same time a great example of the poverty issue in Los Angeles. And for those action fans, don't worry, there's a lot of that for you here too! I was surprised by the handle Cannell had on the rap world he chose to write about in this book. He kept it real and raw, and I was impressed. Can't wait for the next one!

The first 80% of the book was a good story. Kept you turning the page for more even if it were somewhat predictable, it was entertaining. This is fiction and I realize an author will take a few liberties just like Hollywood does with films...but the last part of the book reminds you that yes, this is the guy that dreamed up the A Team. 2 stars for the last part of the book is being generous. Up until that point, it was a solid 4 star rating but he really crapped out the last section. Where was Mister T?

I'm also curious if he knows the difference between a Lincoln Navigator and a Chevrolet (or GMC) Suburban. He kept referring the the same vehicle as both in one section of the book.

Had I known how bad the last part was, I wouldn't have bothered reading the book. The first 80% wasn't good enough to make up for the last 20%.

I have read every one of his novels. The Shane Scully series is outstanding; great characters, imaginative plots and fun reading. He is a 'gritty' writer with edgey characters. This latest novel has a new character woven throughout who continues to surprise as he suddenly 'pops up'. If you like Stephen J. Cannell you will not be disappointed!

LAPD detective Shane Scully and his wife Alexa plan to meet in one hour. However, while he arrives at their rendezvous spot, she never makes it. Concerned as she would have told him if something came up, Shane is called to the crime scene of an executed African-American gangbanger found dead in Alexa's car with her gun nearby. Alexa is soon also found shot in the head, barely alive.

Regardless of law and police procedures including vested interest, Scully needs action while he prays for his beloved spouse. He investigates the homicide and her shooting, which leads to rap music. He quickly realizes that gangsta rap is fairy tales for children compared to the executive wars especially Lou and Stacy Maluga. She, known as "the white sister", can destroy a person legally through the law and media or illegally through a hit. If Scully gets to close she will use all her lethal weapons as blood on her hands make her even more ambitiously and deadly; Shane needs to bring her down using her methods, at least the illegal ones.

Scully is not just over the top in this exciting crime thriller, he is over Mount Everest as he is a bit (make that humongous) unhinged by what happened to Alexa. The story line is speed of light action that never decelerates until the final climax. Fans will put on their seat belts and crash helmets as they ride alongside an avenging Scully, who adds humor when he turns occasionally sensitive and mellow. Stephen J. Cannell writes a fun out of control High Noon tale.

Harriet Klausner

The book is pretty good, the story is kind of fun. Now allow me to rant a bit.

First I will borrow a choice line from J Noburn: ***Don't read the rest of this review unless you've read the novel or you don't care if I ruin the plot for you (although Cannell ruined it long before I got involved)***

I wish that the Mystery Writers' Union, or whatever, would pass a regulation stating that in any mystery novel, any main character who gets deathly sick, or mortally wounded, dies, is buried, RIP, and may never appear in any resurrection or reincarnation. A dead characters stays dead!

The sorry cliché of the dying loved one belongs to 19th century melodrama, where it was already worn out. If anybody thought the cliché was stale, Patterson (Alex Cross) proved over and over again how unbelievable it is.

I believe that people who read mysteries are people who like to think and reason things out. Okay, so we should be able to reason that if the author has gone to all the trouble of creating one of these main characters, with all their traits, quirks, past, and hopes, and is not likely to erase all that and start again with a new character. Obviously the author wants to hold onto these characters who work, who come off the page, and is not going to kill them off.

All the more so when we do not necessarily read an author's books in chronological order. Before White Sister I read a later novel, On the Grind, in which Alexa is fine and kicking, so how much suspense did her tedious agony cause? None, it just meant the reader had to plod through (or skip, as the case may be) pages and pages of unnecessary medical jargon.

And now that I've said that, would anybody like to say a few words about the oh-so-cute but oh-so-smelly homeless hobo cliché?

For a couple decades starting in the mid-Seventies, Stephen J. Cannell was one of the biggest TV writer/producers around, responsible for such shows as The Rockford Files, Wiseguy, The A-Team and 21 Jump Street. In the past few years, however, he has focused more on writing and - after writing a few standalone novels - has now written a series of novels featuring LA detective Shane Scully.

In White Sister, Cannell offers a little change-of-pace by having Shane narrate instead of using the third person point-of-view. I suppose this is a necessary shift as Shane will undergo a major personal crisis in this book and the first-person viewpoint can show his internal feelings better. The crisis involves his wife, Alexa, who has turned up missing and who seems linked to the death of an undercover (and possibly dirty) cop.

Although Alexa will be found reasonably quickly (within the first 100 pages), things are far from good. Not only does evidence point to her having committed murder, but it appears she was the dead cop's lover (and the fact that he was black adds race into the equation as well). Far worse, however, is she is in grave condition, having apparently shot herself after confessing to the murder. It takes all of Shane's love and willpower to believe in her despite the evidence, and his efforts to find the truth will endanger his own job and will even get him accused of a role in the killing.

If Alexa's not the killer (and no faithful reader of the Shane Scully books will believe she is), then who is responsible? The answers will be found in a somewhat muddled plot involving intrigue in the world of rap music, with the center of everything being Stacy Maluga (the White Sister of the title), the wife of a major rap music producer.

Cannell still cannot fully escape his TV writer roots. On the plus side, this means he is a more-than-competent writer who moves things along well. On the minus side, he can be rather formulaic and he can't seem to make the push from being an okay writer to a great one (the ending of this novel includes a bit of silliness that better writers would avoid). In short, this qualifies as a so-called "beach read": a light and fast-reading book with shallow but decent entertainment value.

This book is another well writen one by the master of the pen, Stephen J Cannell. Rather then go through the plot of the book, since others have already done that, I will mention that to me, this book was loosely based on Death Row Records, and the LA rap scene from that timeframe. In fact, the owner of the main label in the book sounds exactly like Suge Knight, and there is an awards show in the same place that Biggie was gunned down. So, if the whole Death Row thing interests you and you haven't read a Cannell book, check this out. Oh yeah, and Shanes wife is in a coma!