What do You think about The Blade Itself (2007)?
The Blade Itself tells the story of Danny, a former thief who has built a life for himself after leaving “the life” seven years earlier. His ex-partner, however, has other plans. Fresh out of prison and looking to settle the score, Evan brings trouble into Danny’s life.I had a lot of trouble reading this book, because its premise bothered me so much (from the emotional perspective–the story made me nervous, not skeptical). One of the scariest ideas is that someone would decide to start messing with you, and couldn’t be deterred. The impotence of the criminal justice system in preventing, rather than avenging, crime becomes evident in this sort of story.Once I got past the initial 60 pages or so, the book zipped by with the lightning speed of a flat-out foot race. Sakey does a good job of escalating the stakes for the main character without pushing it outside the realm of believability. And he crafts a villain whose just sane enough that it rings true and at the same time walks the madman’s path so easily.The title comes from Homer: “The blade itself incites to violence.” Obviously connected to the nature of guns and gun crime, one woman in my book club suggested that the title refers to the villain, who enters the story like a force of nature, and around whom violence eddies.Book available via BookMooch (as of 2008 11 16)
—Brendan
A long time ago, I got a short story published in a horror magazine. But since I don’t live in the United States, I missed out on my free copy. I tried to make arrangements to have it sent to a friend, who would then forward it to me, but the magazine went out of business before that happened. Then some time later I found the index of the issue I was featured in, with a list of all the other writers' names. So I looked them up and sent messages to those whose e-mail I found. Marcus Sakey was one of them and he was perfectly willing to send me his copy.Turns out Sakey has published four thrillers meanwhile, and he's even been translated in several languages (including Dutch). So my library has a copy of his book, and since I was done with reviewing the Koontz books, it was the obvious choice of next to read.“The Blade Itself” is his debut crime novel. The Dutch title is “Breaking Point”, for obvious reasons.The story is about Danny Carter, ex-thief who has bettered his life after a job gone wrong. He got away while his partner in crime Evan got caught and was convicted to twelve years in jail. After seven years, however, Evan is released, and immediately the guy goes looking for his former partner and forces him to join in one final heist.The novel begins with Danny and Evan still both in their thieving days as they go about robbing a pawn shop. The opening chapter immediately sets the pace of the novel: a thriller with the necessary action. As the story progresses, we move ahead seven years, and then we follow Danny for several weeks as Evan terrorizes him.The book is both slow ánd fast; I like the story and a lot happens to the characters, though I’m wondering when the real action starts, since everything still takes several weeks to reach the finale. When you’ve come from reading books where the stories usually take place over a matter of a few days or sometimes even only hours, this change of pace takes some getting used to. You want things to hurry up, you want the action to flow more swiftly, have Danny drop from one setback into another without a chance to breathe. However, the longer timeframe of “The Blade Itself” is actually a good choice: it stresses the psychological terror of the villain, slowly chipping away Danny’s defences, literally pushing him to his “breaking point”.It's also been a long time since I've actually read a book in Dutch and it really takes some getting used to as well. The writing isn't as crisp, as imaginitive, as colorful. The characters are good, dialogue as well, but I keep translating certain phrases back to English. For instance, the seven word sentence "hij vindt het leuk om te kijken" obviously comes from the original four word sentence "he likes to watch"; which sounds a lot more direct and succinct. They could've just as easily used a more appropriate and also only four word sentence "hij kijkt graag toe"; and you could even omit the last word, as well. But this is translating issues, and doesn’t reflect the original story.I went in without any expectations, without any prejudice, only with the idea to give a new author a chance; Sakey has passed with flying colors, and I’ll definitely take a look at his other books when I have the chance.
—Johnny
This is Marcus Sakey's debut novel, and it's even more impressive for that fact.The protagonist Danny has built a nice life for himself, but all of this is threatened when his old buddy shows up. Evan had gone to prison after a botched pawn shop robbery, during which he savagely beat and shot two people. Danny had run away and Evan took the rap, keeping his mouth shut. Now he figures Danny owes him.Evan forces Danny to help pull off one last big job, kidnapping the son of Danny's boss for ransom. Things go wrong for a lot of reasons, one of which is that Evan is a psychopath. Evan doesn't merely want the ransom; he also wants to punish Danny, and the kidnapping is a means to destroy his comfortable life. Danny decides he has to make things right, even though he knows the danger Evan poses and that he will probably try to kill Danny's girlfriend if he suspects any opposition on Danny's part. Sakey utilizes a lot of the conventions of crime thrillers. In less skilled hands, it might have come off as cliched, but Sakey makes it compelling. I don't think it's too much of a risk to compare him to Elmore Leonard.
—Jim
