Stillhouse Lake by Rachel Caine Review

After wandering through multiple locations under forged identities Gina Royal and her two children settle in a new home by the side of Stillhouse Lake. Since The Event they have been hounded by trolls both inside and outside the internet. Living like a fugitive is draining. It turns Gina jumpy and paranoid. They want to live, like normal people. Here Connor and Lanny do something they once thought was too dangerous to do. They make friends. So does their mother Gina. Taking root is risky, she knows. But one has to settle some time. With strong allies like Sam, Javi and Absalom on her side she now has a sense of security. Maybe it’s time to reach closure. She needs it. Connor and Lanny need it even more. Suddenly something happens. The mutilated body of a young woman is found floating in Stillhouse Lake. She realizes, no matter how hard she tries, she can’t outrun the dark, ominous shadow of Mel Royal.

The Event took place long ago, a long time before they made Stillhouse Lake their home. Mel, back then, was not an ex-husband yet. He was a good husband, a great father and a hard-working, amiable human being. Gina used to be a dutiful housewife, mostly busy with their children among other things. One day there was an accident. A SUV crashed into their garage, exposing the entire place Mel called ‘his workshop’. Inside, was dangling the mutilated corpse of a woman. The place they once called home suddenly turned into a crime scene. Later they found out, the dead woman in the garage wasn’t the only one Mel killed. This was followed by his arrest, trial and a death sentence. Gina was also arrested on the charge of being an accomplice, but was later acquitted. The Event – a name she’d used to refer to those gruesome memories – had wrecked their lives and turned them into fugitives. People weren’t happy with the acquittal of Mel’s Little Helpers. The punishment isn’t complete, as some of them had suggested, as long as Mel’s family is still alive. To protect herself and the children from this all-consuming hatred, she had no other option but to go into hiding.

It doesn’t matter if Mel’s in prison. He’s got people watching them, he tells Gina. His letters aren’t meaningless blabbers of an unhinged mind. They are filled with threats, deliberate and detailed. Back in Stillhouse Lake, among the familiar faces, there must be someone who’s working secretly to destroy Gina, leaking information on her whereabouts. She doesn’t know whom to trust. If Mel wants to reach her, he’s probably going to do it through her children. Mel’s psychopathic manipulations turn Stillhouse Lake into a cord that starts tightening around her neck. Mel Royal’s very own Modus Operandi.

Rachel Caine’s gripping tale is about a serial killer, yet it has nothing similar to anything I’ve read – fiction or non-fiction – on the subject. The story of Stillhouse Lake starts after the arrest. The public opinion, the mob mentality, the displaced anger, the revenge-mongering – they take control over human reasons. It shows, how some of us, innocent as we’d like to think ourselves to be, could very well turn into killers without the restraint of law. It was clear that Mel Royal controlled several individuals who worked for him, killed for him. But why and when exactly did they decide to help him? How could he wield such power over them, sitting in a small prison cell? What did he have to offer in return? He surely had no money and not everyone who helped him, worshiped him as a hero. These questions were not clearly dealt with. But this is the first book in Rachel Caine’s Stillhouse Lake series. I hope more explanations will follow in the next book. It took me less five hours to finish. Treat yourself with a big-Mac before you start. Once you get past The Event, you may not want to take a break.

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Review: Tom Pagdin, Pirate by E. J. Brady

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It was settled. When Tom Pagdin became the captain of a pirate ship, Dave would be his first-mate.

The two thirteen-year-olds escaped the tyranny of their parents to pursue a career in piracy. They didn’t have a ship. As the pirate crew, they had only each other. Tom had found a stray boat and had hidden it somewhere along the riverbank. The two runaways decided to escape in that boat. Before they sailed off, they accidentally overheard two mysterious men hatching a plan to rob a bank. Seemed like their boat had been discovered by these robbers, who now wanted to ‘borrow’ it for the occasion. After the robbery was carried out, one of the criminals stabbed the other and threw the body into the river.

Tom Pagdin and Dave Gibson, hidden behind a bush, watched it all. Little did they know, the murderer was none other than the vicious, French outlaw Jean Petit, who had escaped from jail, had sailed across Pacific in a small boat. George Chard, the bank clerk was unjustly accused of having involvement in the robbery. Would the two teenage pirates be able to save George? Would Jean Petit, who had walked his way over dead bodies of innocent men, manage to escape once again?

Tom Pagdin, Pirate by Edwin James Brady is a wonderful book that is sure to entertain both a child and an adult alike. E. J. Brady was an Australian poet educated both in the United States and Sydney. In his early life, he had worked as a wharf clerk, a farmer, and a journalist. His familiarity with the landscapes of rural Australia has its unmistakable impressions on the pages of Tom Pagdin, Pirate. The major characters of Tom, Dave, and Jean Petit were made alive mainly through conversations. Tom had a thick, Australian rural accent,

“Pick up your swag an’ foller me,” ordered Tom. “I’ll take yer right away.”

while Jean Petit spoke the sibilant English of a Frenchman.

“Ah! Zen vere shall ve meet – you an’ I, eh?”

Some, especially today’s mentors of creative writing, recommend against using dialectical dialogues. The cluster of apostrophes, misspellings – they say – distracts readers away from the plot. In a prose laden with conversations, they probably do. However, there is a certain advantage of this style; the readers don’t just read the conversation, they can actually hear the characters talking among themselves.

Readers will probably notice that there’s a hierarchy of characters in Edwin James Brady’s Tom Pagdin, Pirate. Importance was given to individual characters according to their roles in the main plot. Jean Petit, the uber-villain, was like a shadow of a predator lurking behind the thicket. He was nowhere, at the same time everywhere. He appears and disappears from the scenes, leaving behind him a trail of blood. Though his identity was not revealed until much later, his evil presence was felt right from the beginning. Tom and Dave, being the main characters, lead the story to its destination. George Chard though he was one of the many who benefitted from Tom’s adventure, remained in comparative obscurity. Jacob and Maria, the farmer -couple, in whose house Tom had stayed for a few hours, appeared on the scene and then quickly passed by.  A similar thing happened with the character called Hans Holterman, the wine-maker. He fell in the way of Jean Petit and was disposed of. Jean Petit’s kissing the knife after he murdered the poor old man, however, left its mark. Jean Petit’s total absence of conscience, his ruthless efficiency in crime, and his treacherous tactics made him a formidable adversary of Tom Pagdin.

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If God was a Banker by Ravi Subramanian

Book Review of If God was a Banker by Ravi Subramanian

If God Was a Banker by Ravi Subramanian, the author of Devil in Pinstripes, is a thriller on corporate banking. Two IIM graduates Sundeep and Swami join New York International Bank. Sundeep Srivastava is an ambitious banker. He believes the end justifies the means. He becomes involved with Naresh, the Doctor Evil of If God Was a Banker. Naresh, it seems, has ample supply of beautiful secretaries who are ready to bed his clients. Here, Sundeep commits his first act of adultery. From then his banking career takes a meteoric rise to fame. But that is only temporary, because (stereo typically) evil always takes all the beating in the end.

The hero in If God Was a Banker, Swami, an epitome of integrity (and probably also of a stress-induced sterility) stands in stark contrast with Sundeep. He loves nothing but South Indian foods, drinks nothing but carbonated drinks, does nothing but banking. He is so downright boring that probably his subordinates consider him a part of their office furniture. But guess what. He weds the prettiest girl whom Sundeep had long wished to bed.

So these two opposite poles work in this bank called New York International Bank. You can imagine what happens in such situations. They get into bitter rivalry. I don’t mean Swami. No. He is supposed to be above this dirty politics, because he is a ‘Tamil Brahmin’ and because he is a god fearing, idli-loving, fiercely honest banker. He is everything a North Indian Sundeep, who is also a hard drinker and a womaniser,  is not.

I am trying to make you understand this. There was rivalry between every other person in this confounded bank. But Swami was never a part of it. In fact he was never a part of anything particular. Naresh is pure evil. Sundeep is being manipulated by him and  does some shadowy dealings. Sundeep also has an extraordinarily healthy libido. Management soon gets the whiff of it.

Now they wants to fire him (That’s good, because considering what he did, I’d like to set him on fire myself). Swami, quite predictably, comes for the rescue. At this point I was seriously thinking if I should quit reading. But hell, I goddamn paid for the book, didn’t I?

The English is good. The story could be better. The characters are in shambles. A real life character is neither pure evil nor impeccably holy. Ravi Subramanian took this point lightly. As a result the book failed to be The Fountainhead and became If God was a Banker instead.

If God was a Banker is however, excellent for killing time. Buy the paperback from Wheeler before boarding the train. Finish it before you reach the destination. Then present it to some banker friend and completely ruin his career.

In case you are clueless about who the God is: for that you have to read the book.

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