Rating: 
Summary: Swift but Unsatisfying Tale
Review: Ridley Pearson created a wonderful Lou Boldt thriller with last year's THE PIED PIPER; the plot was assured and had momentum, and the plot twists unfolded with some plausibility. Here, with THE FIRST VICTIM, Pearson's writing is rather lazy, concocting a plot that's woefully plump of cliches, with unsurprising plot turns and characters who don't hold a lot of interest. I have the same problem with THE FIRST VICTIM as I did with John Sandford's latest, CERTAIN PREY: the author gives the reader too much plot information beforehand, so we're always two to three steps ahead of the hero; in turn, the readers don't have the opportunity to discover anything novel -- we just slog through the narrative to see the detective uncover what we've already known for about 100-150 pages before. It's writing without a lot of spontaniety, with only Pearson's forensic knowledge providing much of interest. Swiftly paced and never boring, yet it's insubstancial in all the ways a thriller shouldn't be.
Rating: 
Summary: This book could have been a blockbuster if it had more depth
Review: and development of the Chinese women who are so sadly explointed when arriving in the U.S. as illegal aliens. Pearson's stories are always good and his character development nearly flawless. However, I felt the subject of women forced to work in sweatshops would have had so much more impact, had the conditions been described in more detail. Also, he has subjects that would add more flesh to his story if he would dwell on the relationship of Lou Boldt and his wife, who is in remission with cancer, especially, since Boldt is having a difficult time accepting Liz's newfound faith in God. I would like to see him broaden the characters of La Moia and some of the others. This would take nothing away from his main character and could be very entertaining. I applaud him for addressing the entry of other nationalities into this country and how they can be, and are exploited. After saying all the above; I don't want to miss any of his books and even when he isn't at his best, I'm always unable to put one of his books down and will stay up into the wee hours of the morning in order to enjoy his prose.
Rating: 
Summary: Pulsating police procedural
Review: Due to Typhoon Mary, the Visage lost one of its crates that it was transferring to another ship in the sea. The Coast Guard picks up the "metal iceberg" that threatens to harm ships in the Seattle area. Hearing human screams from within, they call the police and the INS. Nine Chinese women crawled out of the space with some help. Three were placed in bags. Law enforcement officials Lou Boldt and John LaMoia investigate the case with a gritty determination due to what the smugglers did to these humans. Reporter Melissa Chow convinces her "brother" TV news anchor Stevie McNeal to investigate a small lead. However, she goes undercover, only to vanish somewhere inside the Chinese brothels. Meanwhile, the two police officers keep losing their witnesses as if someone in authority is leaking information to the criminal masterminds. Time is running out for Melissa. Ridley Pearson is renowned for his action-packed police procedurals and his latest thriller will not disappoint his myriad of fans. The story line is filled with action and Lou remains a wonderfully frustrated individual. However, the novel falls victim to its own premise that centers on the cruelty of humans towards one another because that aspect never takes hold, leaving readers with little concern over the fate of Melissa. Mr. Pearson scribes an excellent police thriller that could have been a classic novel on human conditions. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: America--The Final Victim?
Review: Screams are coming from a shipping container being fished out of Puget Sound, a container filled with illegal immigrants, Asian women bound for sweatshops and prostitution. The container had slipped off its transfer cable and plunged into a stormy sea, but even before that some had died.
This is the attention-grabbing scene early in another of Pearson's Lou Boldt hardboiled detective series. A good read, and since written by a "New York Times best-selling author," it provides an excellent example of how today's novelist handles the issue of US mass immigration, legal and illegal.
As is true of almost all fictional attempts to deal with this topic, the book condemns the exploitation of illegals without condemning illegal immigration itself--that which makes such exploitation inevitable.
Commenting to his wife on the ship-container deaths, Boldt reflects on immigration: "We all crossed the ocean at some point. Your people came in the early 1800s. Mine during the Great War. You think our people would make it now? All the qualifications and requirements?"
How odd. Since we are now living in the longest sustained period of mass immigration in US history, how is it that "All the qualifications and requirements" are making things so much more restrictive? Or maybe Boldt is making an oblique reference to the anti-European stacked deck of US immigration policy, largely due to so much "chain migration" chaining back to Third World people who first came here illegally. Yes, maybe that's it--and maybe my cat Molly will develop a stand-up routine and start touring dog kennel charity shows.
No, more likely it is the familiar practice of lumping all immigrants, legal, illegal, past, present, into the same moral category. And part of the standard defense that illegals as coming here [cue inspirational music] "seeking a better life"--apparently impossible outside of the United States, and a rationale that would excuse almost any invasion in history. Open-border apologists also frequently argue that illegals are "unstoppable," so it is futile to even try--and, besides, it's unsavory to even bring it up, because it shows, you know, "intolerance" and stuff.
Back to the Boldts. Lou's wife: "If your grandfather had never made the crossing, we would not be here." Wow, this woman is deep.
Lou: "That's what's bugging me, I think. If those women had lived ... at least for awhile they would have a legitimate chance at freedom." "Legitimate" illegals?
Ironically, elsewhere in the book, when it comes to things like police lawbreaking, Boldt is said to be "sentry at the gate." But aren't our nation's borders the ultimate "gate"? Protecting us from terrorists, murderers, rapists, robbers, and the like? Some sentry.
After Boldt, the book's featured character is television news anchor Stevie McNeal, whose half-Asian, half-sister reporter, Mi Chow/Melissa, is captured by the illegal smuggling gang while she is covering the container-death story.
The anchorwoman conducts an interview with INS official Adam Talmadge, during which she keeps referring to all Seattle illegals as "political refugees," apparently because many are from a repressive China. Well, let's see, following that criterion, how many hundreds of millions of the world's billions could move here tomorrow?
The official disputes her, saying in the agency's defense, "Congress has enacted one of the most far-reaching, sweeping overhauls to the Immigration Act this century, making our borders more welcoming that they have been in our seventy years." Welcoming borders? The more you repeat this phrase, the more hilariously Orwellian it becomes--and so very true!
Later in the book, the admired anchorwoman darkly refers to the real image of the INS as being "gatekeepers" and "border guards." Apparently US law enforcement officers risking their lives daily at our borders belong to one of the ickiest occupations imaginable. Since this is obviously presented as the common view of enlightened people, it is, once again, predictably Orwellian, since the real public image of the INS, if public opinion polls mean anything, is that of an agency did not provide ENOUGH support to the Border Patrol.
Although the book's lead characters are obviously meant to be open-minded and intelligent, they seem oblivious or confused on the connection between never-ending mass immigration and its inescapable consequences--such as growing crime. Although Boldt believes that his job now "implicitly requires fundamental knowledge of and contact with elements of organized crime, whether the Chinese Triad, the Russian Mafia ...," he still thinks immigration is just too darn restrictive. So what's the next requirement for Seattle's overworked police detectives, intimate knowledge of the crime lords of Katmandu?
Another familiar aspect of immigration's fictional treatment is that everything is personal. Bolt thinks of illegal immigration in terms of his (legal!) immigrant grandfather. The anchorwoman is motivated by memories of her father's valiant "efforts to smuggle [her half-sister] out of China alive." Sheer numbers of immigrants, and descendants, never enters into it--the effects on the environment, crime, you name it. However, the equally personal stories of those who are victims of crimes committed BY illegal immigrants--keeping in mind that about one in five of all those in American jails and prisons are illegals, for crimes other than their immigration status--never get mentioned. Apparently fictional characters who can think rationally about cumulative immigration NUMBERS would be just too embarrassingly uncool.
In the meantime, the dedicated lieutenant will go on solving his intriguingly gruesome murders, while the stunning anchorwoman will continue enjoying her "contract that includes a Town Car and driver to shuttle her to and from her all-expense-paid five-bedroom co-op apartment." Neither, we can be sure, will ever experience fifteen illegals encamped next door, nor lose their job to one.
On the other side of the issue, we have average un-PC Americans who are burdened by their ability to perform basic math, and are increasingly viewing never-ending mass legal and illegal immigration as leading to a non-nation nation, a teeming collapsed anthill of alien and warring cultures. Good luck Lou.
Not that this book isn't skillfully written. More's the pity.
Rating:
Summary: Not up to the previous books in the series...
Review: If you're a Lou Boldt fan you'll read this book anyway because you care about the characters, and you'll want to keep up to date with them. I can't recommend reading this book for any other reason. It doesn't measure up to anything Pearson has done in the past. Certainly the subject matter, mistreatment of illegal Asian aliens, is important, but the story plods along with very little suspense or real urgency. I love Ridley Pearson's writing, but this book seems rushed, and forced in all the wrong ways.
Rating:
Summary: Not a bad story; seems familiar. Well read though.
Review: This is the first story of Ridley Pearson's I've listened to [I'm referring to the abridged audiocassette version] featuring Lou Boldt. It was not bad. The story seems a little familiar (perhaps, because "Law and Order" or one of the program(me)s; perhaps, CSI, I'm not sure)had a similar story. Anyway, the reader, Scott Rosema, kept the story "tight". The characters, the detective, the reporter, and her friend, who took a chance going "undercover", are fairly strong. I think I'd like to check into more of Mr. Pearson's work. Recommended to me by a co-worker. Not bad, as I said, even though familiar.
Rating:
Summary: An "A" for Effort--Keep Them Coming
Review: I get real tired with people who expect a 5 star novel every time up to bat. Personally I'll settle for a 5 star effort. The only thing that I really got bogged down with was the bureacracy. The rest of it was well paced. one of my fellow Ridley fans aptly described this as a mind thriller. definitely an apt description.
Rating:
Summary: Hanging On
Review: This is my first read of Pearson. I found it thoughtful and intriuging. The story is creative yet real and gives the reader a new set of world issues to consider. A good read.
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