Under the Beetle's Cellar

Rating:
Summary: Haunting
Review: As a previous reviewer said, it has been a while since I first read Under the Beetle's Cellar, yet images from the book continue to dance unbidden in my thoughts. I can't explain it, because, though the story is excellent and the writing is adequate, I felt at the time that Under the Beetle's Cellar lacked soul. Maybe it was the fact that I never truly felt for the characters, particularly the main character, a bus driver who, along with 50 children, is held hostage by a religious cult. One of the threads of the story is that the bus driver tells stories to calm the children. I felt that these story-telling sessions lasted far too long. A page or two at a time would have been sufficient. The story was powerful enough to overcome my many misgivings but, in the hands of Stephen King or a host of other top writers, it would undoubtedly have been a bestseller. Yet still chunks of the story still keep floating back into my head. Funny that!

Rating:
Summary: Thank You, Mary Willis Walker
Review: I din't fully buy into this book until after the first two chapters, but then I was hooked. The investigation held together nicely (so many 'thrillers' these days have haphazard and/or unbelievable investigations). The characterizations were wonderful. I kept asking myself, "What would a 'real life' person do under these circumstances?" and found that the actions of the characters were very believable. My favorite thing about the book was how it pointed out the logical and frightening end result of abandoning reason for faith. We saw it on September 11, and we see it here. And, thankfully, the author doesn't make the unforgivable mistake of defending a 'softer' version of faith/religion in the end.

Rating:
Summary: Top of my List
Review: It has been five years since I first read this book and it still invades my mind from time to time. This is a beautifully written complex novel with strands that all eventually merge during the climax of the story. This also contains one of the most believable heroic main characters found in modern literature.

I have recommended this book to my friends, relatives and even complete strangers. Outstanding.

Rating:
Summary: Gripping
Review: Mary Willis Walker weaves my favorite tale ever in Under the Beetle's Cellar, a gripping novel that grows as you read and finds you entangled by the end.
A former Southerner myself, Texas cults have always interested me. Walker gives the reader a story worth reading. It starts out slowly, stiffly even, with unnecessary and unrealistic dialogue utilized at times by the heroine, Molly Cates. But as the pressure builds, Walker lets go of all the [stuff] and just writes. The result is a beautifully suspenseful and finally, devastating novel.
Walker tells the story of an apopalyptic cult and its insane leader, Samuel Mordecai. Predicting the end of the world, they take hostage a busful of 11 children and their driver-- and bury them underground. The story flits madly back and forth between the children and their driver, the FBI negotiators, and the heroine reporter trying to find Samuel Mordecai's past above ground. The most wonderful part of this book is the movie-star like quality of Mordecai and the gasping reality of what he did and what he could have done with his life. He is a human being and Walker paints him as one without excusing his horrible actions.
Ruining the book's ending would be inexcusable. I will not--I will, however, say that a box of tissues would be well equipped. Walker manages to both fascinate and repel you, and the pages will whir by without you having realized it. For me, I was left gasping for air and wondering how I had finished so quickly. The book is a haunting masterpiece, so much more than simple crime fiction, and so much better than those over-hyped rivals like Sue Grafton and Stephen KIng. I am sadly wistful for more...the likes of you, Mary Willis Walker, are hard to find.

Rating:
Summary: Gripping
Review: Mary Willis Walker weaves my favorite tale ever in Under the Beetle's Cellar, a gripping novel that grows as you read and finds you entangled by the end.
A former Southerner myself, Texas cults have always interested me. Walker gives the reader a story worth reading. It starts out slowly, stiffly even, with unnecessary and unrealistic dialogue utilized at times by the heroine, Molly Cates. But as the pressure builds, Walker lets go of all the [stuff] and just writes. The result is a beautifully suspenseful and finally, devastating novel.
Walker tells the story of an apopalyptic cult and its insane leader, Samuel Mordecai. Predicting the end of the world, they take hostage a busful of 11 children and their driver-- and bury them underground. The story flits madly back and forth between the children and their driver, the FBI negotiators, and the heroine reporter trying to find Samuel Mordecai's past above ground. The most wonderful part of this book is the movie-star like quality of Mordecai and the gasping reality of what he did and what he could have done with his life. He is a human being and Walker paints him as one without excusing his horrible actions.
Ruining the book's ending would be inexcusable. I will not--I will, however, say that a box of tissues would be well equipped. Walker manages to both fascinate and repel you, and the pages will whir by without you having realized it. For me, I was left gasping for air and wondering how I had finished so quickly. The book is a haunting masterpiece, so much more than simple crime fiction, and so much better than those over-hyped rivals like Sue Grafton and Stephen KIng. I am sadly wistful for more...the likes of you, Mary Willis Walker, are hard to find.

Rating:
Summary: Trees are happy they died for the paper used for this book.
Review: Ok, like the title said, I don't read much. The last book I read....hmm....is "where's Waldo?" really considered a book? Anyways, I picked up this book at the library to show my daughter reading books is good. It sat on the kitchen table for weeks (had to renew it at the library!).

One day, I was home alone with the flu; decided to read this book to get my mind off my being so sick. Needless to say it sucked me in! I don't know what it was about the book. Molly Cates (the lead character) isn't a superhero with a cape, the idea of reading a book so DARK (really dark---11 children and a busdriver underground with a dying light bulb)doesn't sound EXTRAORDINARY, but I found myself engulfed in this novel.

Molly Cates--so ordinary. Because of that I found myself relating to her...a 40-something single mother of a 24 year old daughter...even though I'm only 25! A romance rekindled with her daughters dad. A wacked out psycho bible thumper holding 12 people in a buried school bus on his compound.

Chapters twisted between Molly's investigating the psycho's past, while working with Lover (a leiutenant) and his department to figure out where, why, how, etc. The kids and adult on the bus, -- telling stories, fighting, kids getting sick, passing time. Time....the book starts on day 46...the world is suppossed to end in 50. Although 46 days has passed, Mary Willis Walker fills you in on the events that lead to their captivity, up to their current situation.

Molly Cates is so NORMAL that I enjoyed reading ABOUT her---although I felt I was reading WITH heR.

Her love affair with her ex-husband is a nice side story too.
I wish I had more room to go into detail.......but then I'd end up giving up some of the thrill of the book, and THIS BOOK IS JUST TOO WONDERFUL TO SPOIL IT FOR YOU.

I LOVED THIS BOOK. Buy it here, get it from the library, borrow it from a friend...just get it and read it. You won't regret it.
I just LOVE this Molly Cates character so much, and I was thrilled find out that there are 3 books starring Molly Cates. The bad thing is UNDER THE BEETLES CELLAR is number 2...so I had to go and get the first one (THE RED SCREAM). It tied up some of the questions I had (like how did she start seeing the ex-husband again?) stuff. I just finished reading THE RED SCREAM and now I have the answers. The only bad thing about reading Under the Beetles Cellar first, was that I sort of knew a major detail about The Red Scream...Molly Cate's doesn't die at the end of the first book. But, still worth every second of both books. Where's number 3!!!!!

Anyways, the book was just fantastic! I couldn't turn the pages quick enough, let alone put it down. UNDER THE BEETLES CELLAR is a better reason to destroy trees for the pages than toilet paper! Read it and you'll be SOOOO happy you didn! Enjoy it!

Now, I must go review The Red Scream!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent reading - and nothing like I expected
Review: This book was suggested to me by my father. It began a little slow, but after 15-20 pages picked up quickly and it was hard to put down after that. I was initially not thrilled with the Molly Cates character, but again she quickly grew on you and I am very excited about reading other "Molly Cates" stories. The Samuel Mordecai character was terrific and I fully became part of the bus load of children buried underground. Jumping from following the trail of Molly to find Samuel's mother, the FBI negotiators at the compound and the time in the bus was all very well written and kept me turning the pages.

Rating:
Summary: Uncer the Beetle's Cellar
Review: Under the Beetle's Cellar Book Review

I am enjoying the book Under the Beetle's Cellar because of the descriptions that the author, Mary Willis Walker, includes. Walker keeps the intensity up in the book because the chapters alternate between two places. So when I am done reading a chapter I want to know what is going to happen with those people so I keep reading.
The book starts out explaining the capture of 12 hostages, which includes eleven elementary school kids and their bus driver. The Hearth Jezreelites hold them under ground for 50 days of purification. They think that if they keep the hostages underground then the earth will purify the hostages. The Jezreelites are a religious cult lead by Samual Mordecai, who believe that the world is going to end on the 50th day of the hostage purification. The negotiators start to give up hope because Mordecai doesn't budge in his reasoning to release the hostages. All the negotiators managed to organize is a phone call from Walter, the bus driver, back to the negotiators. Reporter Molly Cates becomes involved in a dangerous mission to find out the secrets of Mordecai, in attempt to help the hostages. She also helps the negotiators to try to figure out how to rescue Walter and the children.
Things increasingly become more intense because one of the hostage children has increasingly worse asthma attacks. When Walter asked Mordecai for more medication for him Mordecai laughs and says that any medication will alter the purification process.
I enjoy this book a lot because of all of the intensity. I have no ideas what will happen and am excited to find out. I don't know if the hostages will be rescued or if the world might really end. The intensity makes this book a page-turner. I like how I can really feel how the characters are feeling because of the description that is given. I also like how the chapters switch from the hostages to the negotiators. I would recommend the book to any one who likes suspense books. I have 20 pages left and I can hardly wait to finish reading.

Rating:
Summary: Believable characters and non-stop suspense
Review: Walker's riveting third novel features a bus driver and 11 elementary school children abducted by an apocalyptic religious cult, resulting in a 50-day stand-off between federal agents and armed cult members.

Protagonist Molly Cates, a crime writer for a Texas magazine and the only one to ever interview the cult's charismatic leader, Samuel Mordecai, is in a race against time to discover something about Mordecai that will give the hostage negotiators some leverage before the promised apocalypse on day 50.

The novel opens on the 46th day. Walter Demming, the bus driver, a psychologically scarred Vietnam vet who has spent the last 20 years guarding his life from involvement, keeps his charges' spirits up with the continuing adventures of a vulture named Jacksonville, counterbalancing the daily harangues from the cult's leader.

Demming and the children, ranging in age from 6 to 12, are imprisoned in a derelict bus buried underground in an old barn. Worms and bugs tunnel in the earth packed against the bus' windows. One of their two bare light bulbs has just burned out. The children play tic-tac-toe on the windows and pogs in the aisles between the seats.

Fed twice a day on cereal and milk, they fantasize about food. They argue, snap at one another, burst into tears. One of the children suffers from severe asthma. The cult refuses medication and his attacks terrify everyone.

Without melodrama or mush, Walker develops a group dynamic that relies on breathing life into the individual children and especially Demming, a reluctant hero who's scared and lost and determined to do his best.

Walker alternates between scenes in the bus and efforts on the outside. The police, the FBI and the hostage negotiator have gotten nowhere with Mordecai and don't know where the children are being held. Cates, herself viscerally intimidated by her one meeting with the cult leader, delves into the odd circumstances of his birth and his harsh childhood, which clearly loom large in his religious landscape.

Cates' detective work, which involves bending more than a few of her own personal and professional rules, is absorbing and ingenious without being unbelievable. As Mordecai's pathology unfolds, we also get a portrait of Demming from his home and his two close friends.

Cates herself is a prickly but appealing character. A loner with a grown daughter, she's in love with her ex-husband (one of the cops) and driven but ambivalent about her job.

The suspense is nail-biting, but what makes this novel a stand-out is Demming and the kids. Walker gets the atmosphere of timeless boredom and fear just right, the children's voices ring true and Demming's character, revealed in accumulating flashes throughout the narrative, is utterly believable.

A scary thriller with a smashing explosive finish.

Rating:
Summary: very good, effective thriller
Review: Walter Demming - bus driver and Vietnam vet - and eleven schoolkids have been incarcerated in an underground hole for forty six days. They are the hostages of a biazarre fundamentalist cult, kidnapped at gunpoint whilst driving along the road to school. The leader of the cult - who call themselves the Hearth Jezreelites - is the charismatic Samuel Mordecai, the terrifying self-proclaimed Prophet, and every day the captives must endure his garbled religious sermons and rants on the evils of modern life. He has taken them for a very specific and ominous reason, in preparation for the coming Apocalypse, which he foretells will arrive in just five days time.

After 46 days, the negotiations have reached a dead-lock. Mordecai will not even listen, let alone concede anything, and he threatens to kill the hostages if even one person steps onto Jezreeelite soil. It is now that crime reporter Molly Cates enters the scenario. She interviewed Mordecai once before and did not like the experience at all. Now, if she can possibly unearth more about Mordecai's past that the FBI can use as a lever in the negotiations, she may well be their last remaining hope. But she does have just five days time...

This is an excellent thriller. There's nothing particularly wonderful about Willis Walker's prose-style - it tends towards the pedestrian, the very normal; it certainly doesn't sing - or anything riveting about protagonist Molly Cates - she is real and human, but there isn't a great deal save from her humanity and stubbornness to make her stand out from many other gutsy female protagonists - but this is still one terrific thriller, which definitely deserves to be more widely read. It's intelligent and though-provoking (but not too much) and tackles well issues of religion and faith and religious mania, as well as having some snappy dialogue and a cracker of a plot. It marries three elements absolutely brilliantly: cults, hostage negotiating, and good old investigating. The Prophet Samuel Mordecai is a particularly delicious villain, chilling and, of course, mad, as well as having a brilliant name. Mordecai. Mordecai. My, i could just roll that one about on my tongue for ages. Isn't it just great?

Anyway...Under the Beetle's Cellar is a tense, suspenseful thriller with a dramatic and moving conclusion that does not disappoint. In terms of plot, you'll notice that this book is strikingly similar to Jeffery Deaver's brilliant A Maiden's Grave, (group of children of a bus kidnapped and held hostage), which was published in the same year. But, this book still retains some very original, different elements which make it another must-read thriller.