Even Steven

Rating:
Summary: Full of activity , excitement, and danger.
Review: Even Steven was one of the better books I have read in awhile. The story begins with a young couple, camping outdoors on a romantic weekend with the hopes of overcoming their pain of not being able to have a child. Mysteriously, a child comes running from the woods, screaming, a toddler. The couple then becomes involved in a game of cat and mouse, a web of murder and drug smuggling, kidnapping, and intrigue. Their lives are turned upside down in a matter of an hour. The story is fast paced and interesting, and will keep you turning pages. The ending is....well, can't give that one away, let's just say it is an interesting turn of events. This author has a great grasp on how to entice and hold onto a reader.

Rating:
Summary: Some Problems... All in All a Good Read
Review: Gilstrap has once again amazed me with his powerful "family on the run"-type writing style. "Even Steven" is, overall, a good book. It doesn't quite live up to "At All Costs," and is no where near as compelling as "Nathan's Run," but not all books can be classics. Gilstraps offers situations that everyone can relate to. A mother in fear of losing a child, a father trying to keep control over his family, an older brother stuck caring for his younger sibling, and a younger brother unable to shed the annoyance of having his older brother watching his every move. Gilstrap's main lacking point is the way he caries out his plot. Sometimes it seems as though he were looking for the easy way out, and didn't take the time to make the stroy beleivable. I would consider this a bedside book. Don't be surprised if it doesn't turn out to be an instant classic!

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I really like Nathan's Run, but couldn't get into At All Costs. I'm glad Even Steven came along. Very fast paced and a convoluted, but very followable , plot. Enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: lots of action but little else
Review: If you like melodrama - lots of action, a few decent characters, but others totally unrealistic, then you'll like this book. I enjoy a well-placed 4-letter word as much as most readers, but Gilstrap goes overboard here, even with the characters most likely not to be shouting invectives at each other and in descriptive narrative of the weather. Though fast moving, it's also repetitive. This is my first Gilstrap, so if he's still getting "better and better", I think I'll wait a few more books.

Rating:
Summary: THE CHASE GOES ON
Review: It's quite obvious to fans of John Gilstrap that this is an author who likes the "chase". In his debut novel, Nathan's Run, he had 12 year old Nathan Bailey being chased by the cops. In his second novel, At All Costs, the entire Donovan family was being chased by the FBI. Now in his third novel, Even Steven, Gilstrap has stayed true to form as we find Susan and Bobby Martin being chased by the cops, the FBI and a kidnapper.

In this book, Gilstrap gives us three concurrent stories that you know will eventually be neatly tied together by this skillful author. In Maryland, Susan and Bobby Martin have been disappointed one too many times in trying to have a baby. After their last mishap, they decide to take a camping trip to West Virginia to regroup and celebrate their wedding anniversary. In Pittsburgh, April Simpson returns home from work to find out that her three year old son Justin has been kidnapped. In West Virginia, two brothers, Jacob and Samuel, have been hired out to kidnap a child. You will travel from state to state during this chase led by FBI agent Russell Coates.

The opening scene finds Susan and Bobby relaxing at their campsite when their peaceful evening is disturbed by a screaming child who is obviously running away from someone. While trying to quiet the child, a man comes running into the clearing claiming to be the boy's father. The couple realize that something is not right with this scenario and challenge the man. A fight ensues, someone is killed and the "chase" begins.

Those familiar with Gilstrap now know they will be in for the ride of their lives. As with his other two books, it is a fast- paced page turner and, midway through the book, you can't imagine how this will ever turn out OK. As the FBI begins to close in, Agent Coates has his own doubts as to the actual suspects at the same time that the reader does.

I became a fan of this author when I read Nathan's Run three years ago. I now anxiously await every new book he writes knowing that I will never be disappointed. He's one of a kind in a class all his own. I envy anyone who hasn't read his books yet knowing that they have some wonderful surprises ahead of them.

Rating:
Summary: Improbable Kidnapping Story
Review: Susan and Bobby are camping out near the Catoctin River on their anniversary and trying to forget the pain and sadness of a miscarriage, when suddenly a small, filthy child crosses their path. He is only about 3 or 4 years old and obviously terrified. A disreputable-looking man comes looking for the child, but Bobby immediately senses something amiss when the boy cries out in terror. They refuse to turn over the boy, and in the fight that ensues, Bobby accidentally kills the intruder. Not knowing how to handle such a situation, they pack up and flee home with the boy. Susan is so desperate to have a child, that she becomes delusional and unrealistic and wants to keep him and pretend that he is their child. This is where the book descends too far into unreality. You can't just pick a child from the "lost-and-found" and keep him. The parallel plot line of the terror his real mother feels at losing him is heart-wrenching and far more plausible.

The true criminals are incredibly stupid, and have gotten involved with some really bad guys, and Bobby and Susan's welfare is increasingly precarious as the criminals track them down. The plot becomes almost like a Keystone-cops routine, and somehow I was never truly convinced that they were in mortal danger. However, I remained curious enough about how the plot would unravel to follow it through to the predictable ending.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable read but not his best
Review: This does not approach the excitement level of his debut "Nathan's Run",but then very few novels do,and it is still a competent and enjoyable thriler
Bobby and Susan Martin are a prosperous couple whose life lacks only one thing-a child,previous pregnancies having gone awry through either stillbirth or miscarriage.While on a camping trip in the Catoclin National Forest they encounter a runaway boy,dishevelled and exceptionally dirty.In close pursuit is a hulking brute of a man who clearly terrifies the child.An altercation breaks out and Bobby accidently kills the man who is carrying a police officer's badge.Susan blithely disregards the circumstances and insists on viewing the child as a gift from God-a replacement for their stillborn child Steven after whom she names the newcomer.
The child has in fact been kidnapped by a local gangster as collateral for a debt and stirred into the mix we have the child's real mother ,and the FBI who are in pursuit of the Martin's

The handling of several disparte plot strands is not always as deft as could be but the characterization is good and the ghradual unravelling os Susan and her refusal to accept the truth,with its concomittant strain on the marital relationship is convincing not something I can say for the burgeoning relationship betwen the mother and an FBI agent which fails to persuade

Perhaps the next novel will get away from the chase motif which is starting to wear a tad thin

Rating:
Summary: A plot to be plowed through, not savored.
Review: To judge from the blurb on the book's dust jacket, it appears to the reader as if Gilstrap has written yet another imperiled child/family-on-the-run novel for which he's rapidly becoming known. But Pocket Books, John Gilstrap's new publisher, is deliberately misleading the reader into making such an assumption. The central protagonists, Bobby and Susan Martin, spend most of the book either at their house or the mall. The only time they are on the run is when they're escaping the murder scene at the national park and are racing back home. Other than that, it's notable that Mr. Gilstrap was trying to stretch his wings a bit here and leaving mainly his devotion to the family unit as the only common denominator shared by NATHAN'S RUN, still his high water mark, and AT ALL COSTS. Pocket Books, however, would have you believe otherwise. Shame on them.

That said, EVEN STEVEN starts out promisingly. As always, Gilstrap sets up conflicts and situations that actually ENGAGE the reader. You FEEL Bobby and Susan Martin's desperate bid for parenthood, you HURT with April Simpson in her hopeless situation. These are real-life problems that plague so many of us, yet Gilstrap is able to give them even more dramatic impact in his fiction.

But then something very strange happens- the character delineation stops and, while the book takes place over a 24 hour period and doesn't leave much room for character development (OTOH, Susan dramatically swings back and forth from a normal state to a completely delusional state back to a normal state in those 24 hours), the reader is denied the chance for more backstory in these characters' pasts and they become mere automatons for a resolution that is telegraphed all the way from the middle of the book.

The action is thrilling, many people get killed or seriously injured but the loose threads hanging at the end of the book are simply unforgivable. What happens to Samuel? What exactly happens to Ricky Timmons at the national park? What was the result of the test at the end of the book, something that seems to have been cribbed from the finale of Tom Clancy's PATRIOT GAMES?

How did Jacob Stanns get ahold of a police ID and how did he and Patrick Logan even meet since the former lived in WV and the latter in Pittsburgh? Aren't there enough thugs in Pittsburgh so the crime bosses don't have to import muscle from the sticks? And how does a supposedly canny crime boss suddenly get stupid enough to go back to a federal crime scene to meet with the accomplice of a kidnapper he'd hired (with kid in tow)?

And what DA in his or her right mind would simply throw out an ironclad case in which a person attempts to rob a mall, resists arrest and fires a gun at a crowd? And, in the Martins's case, the legal resolution wasn't even addressed- Their problems just seem to have vanished as if the reader can take it on Gilstrap's blind faith that federal prosecutors are soft-hearted public servants who are willing to look the other way at manslaughter and possible kidnapping charges.

With the conflict still far from being resolved, the reader looks at the page number, then at the last page and realizes that only about 80 or so pages remain for Gilstrap to resolve all these myriad details. When one sees that he doesn't (he wastes his dwindling space and time dawdling in Samuel's mind about how his father was killed), one has to wonder if his editor at Pocket Books gave him enough time to finish the final draft. The denouement is one of the most telescoped I've ever seen and the ending, while mildly thrilling, left me feeling cheated and unsatisfied.

The reason why I'm giving EVEN STEVEN three stars is because Gilstrap's writing seems to improved over the indulgences that occasionally mar NATHAN'S RUN and AT ALL COSTS. Once again, Gilstrap is pragmatic, world-weary, and amusingly cynical. He shifts POV and narrator voice expertly (Samuel's simple-minded narrator, in a way, reminds me of The Digger's in Deaver's THE DEVIL'S TEARDROP).

Overall, despite its initial promise, EVEN STEVEN is a thin, anemic effort that doesn't match up to NATHAN'S RUN or even AT ALL COSTS. I hope that John Gilstrap takes greater care with his next effort.

Rating:
Summary: what a page turner!!
Review: What a book, from the first page a great story was woven with the last 50 pages being breath taking. His personal background enabled him to express a ghetto and its hopelessness better than others,and his building of characters was impressive. Have to go back and read his first book as I missed it. Will certainly look forward to his next.