Cannell writes a good story, that's for sure. He doesn't write it well. He writes it good. His need to use cliché and lingo and parlance sometimes gets a little tiresome. He also somehow feels the need to tell me exactly how to get to the locations in his story. "So they took a left on Cedar and drove down over the tracks until it dead-ended in to Sinai, where they turned right, went over the bridge, and crossed 42nd by the train station..." and so on. He does that several times in this book. Well several times in each chapter, it feels like. I think he felt the need to express his knowledge of the actual area. I'm okay that you know your way around Tampa, Mr. Cannell. I don't need to read about it. I'm not that impressed.It's not a bad book though. Like I said, his writing is not very good, but his stories are pretty exciting. I always end up liking the books I finish. I've read five of them now, having just finished Riding the Snake today. I'm about to report on that one as well. They're all grandiose stories that would be impossible to pull off in real life, but I guess I like the macro action. It's a thrilling ride. This one was about a serial killer, a split-personality psychopath the leads had to chase down and stop before he killed again. Yeah, it's been done before, but this was well told. Stephen usually uses characters who shouldn't be solving the cases to solve the cases, and that's fun.
When I grabbed this for my next read I thought, a serial killer story written seventeen years ago. I noticed it had all the main characters -the renegade FBI agent (OK, US Customs agent), a beautiful/brilliant profiler and a young computer hacker serving time, that our renegade weaseled out of prison for his help. But, with the prolific TV creator Cannell as the author, he gives the reader (back then) of what a very smart killer that is also a computer whiz. Really gave me the creeps, what someone could do to kill you/find you/get back at you...with the use of cyber space. Good read.
What do You think about Final Victim (1996)?
I didn't expect much from Final Victim, seeing as how both the title and the picture on the cover make it seem like one of those "steamy thriller" plots you get on late-night cable. And, once again, Stephen J. Cannell made me sorry for ever having doubted him. This is an excellent novel, one that marries a lot of techo-thriller aspects to your standard serial killer/detective storyline. A lot of research went into this, and the offbeat details are what really gets this story off the ground. As with most Cannell novels, it will stretch your credulity at times (like how characters always turn on the TV at just the right time to catch the beginning of an important news story that pertains to them), but I find that to be part of Cannell's charm, the way he is totally brilliant one moment and then a little cheesy the next.
—John
