Storm Tide

Rating:
Summary: A crisply paced thriller
Review: After a shaky bit of exposition, in which the author attempts to explain the protagonists'marital woes, this thriller shifts into high gear and never lets up until its explosive finale. Sean and Rob are lovers vacationing off the Australian coast who inadvertently run into drug smugglers and gun runners. They spend the remainder of the book trying to save their good-looking hides from sure extinction (or, in Rob's case, white slavery). Keegan has paired the boys off with a villian every bit as peripatetic and determined as The Terminator or Jason from the Friday the 13th series. Chandler is a study in sheer human relentlessness. A previous reviewer has cited as a fault the seeming lack of romantic conflict between Sean and Rob. I should say they've got conflict a-plenty! Besides, it is their steadfast, uncomplicated love which helps them survive a very dangerous situation. It also adds a note of sweetness to an otherwise very taut tale. I hope Mr. Keegan is plotting a sequel featuring Sean and Rob. Storm Tide is a hugely entertaining book. But be sure to take Drammamine first.

Rating:
Summary: aussie gay page turner
Review: Mel Keegan has been best known for his gay sci-fi novels, but this is a change of scenery, setting a modern day thriller off the coast of South Australia. Our intrepid heroes, Sean and Rob, seem to have a knack of finding their way into trouble, when all they want to do is have sex. While not the most romantic pair ever to have graced the planet, they are the archtypical strong macho characters needed for this novel to be taken seriously by the reader. The descriptions of the trials caused by floods are excellent and gave it a really eerie atmosphere which would make a great movie. Its very difficult to put down, it really rattles along and reaches an acceptable, but a little bloody conclusion. Thoroughly enjoyed, and I'd really love Mr. keegan to produced some more homegrown stuff--as there really aren't too many others writing in a similar genre.

Rating:
Summary: HOW many impossible things can happen before breakfast?
Review: This has all the speed of EQUINOX with a sound modern day setting and another very sound relationship between two strong characters. Sean loses the plot at times, but Rob is very believable as the rookie trailing a far more dynamic partner through apparently endless trials and tribulations. Once started, the plot never slows up, which occasionally makes you wonder if the characters wouldn't just collapse from sheer exhaustion in the real world, but this is written in Keegan's usual, excellent and thoroughly absorbing style and keeps you involved with the characters and their partnership up to the very end. Keegan writes real relationships- not always perfect, not always steady, but based on two different people and an enduring love. Rob and Sean are understandable, from the start where they are trying to patch their faltering relationship to the end where Rob's insecurity comes far enough out for Sean to see it. How many writers can get inside people's heads like this? At times I wish the plot would step aside and let a little more of this wonderful detail too, but then this is a thriller. One of Keegan's best - I wish he'd write a few more in modern settings.