Counterparts

Rating:
Summary: Lira should change his name to gore-zalo
Review: First let me say that I'm glad I didn't pay for this tripe -- no, I didn't steal it, I took it out of the library.

Things went downhill from there...

Lira's prose is anything but lyrical. His characters have murky motivation, his plots and subplots and sub-subplots are labyrinthine, and he relies far too much on trying to surprise the reader with a new plot twist in almost every chapter.

Worst of all, though, is his reliance on gratuitous violence as a means of filling the blank page with text. Give me a break, Gonzalo -- if you can't think of anything to write, don't write anything. Don't give me page after page of senseless violence in lieu of a plot! While you're at it, try to build a character as a whole, not as a series of disjoint parts. Your main characters are more assemblages of sterotypes and caricatures than they are descriptive of anybody we'd ever want to meet.

As a reasonably intelligent and fairly well-read consumer, I expect more from an author than Lira gave me. Even as a freshman effort, this one falls short.

Rating:
Summary: Lira should change his name to gore-zalo
Review: First let me say that I'm glad I didn't pay for this tripe -- no, I didn't steal it, I took it out of the library.

Things went downhill from there...

Lira's prose is anything but lyrical. His characters have murky motivation, his plots and subplots and sub-subplots are labyrinthine, and he relies far too much on trying to surprise the reader with a new plot twist in almost every chapter.

Worst of all, though, is his reliance on gratuitous violence as a means of filling the blank page with text. Give me a break, Gonzalo -- if you can't think of anything to write, don't write anything. Don't give me page after page of senseless violence in lieu of a plot! While you're at it, try to build a character as a whole, not as a series of disjoint parts. Your main characters are more assemblages of sterotypes and caricatures than they are descriptive of anybody we'd ever want to meet.

As a reasonably intelligent and fairly well-read consumer, I expect more from an author than Lira gave me. Even as a freshman effort, this one falls short.

Rating:
Summary: A very sophisticated, complex first novel
Review: Gonzalo Lira's Counterparts is a dynamite read. It is so rare to find something new in the thriller genre and it is especially surprising in a first novel. Lira writes about the FBI and CIA like a veteran. The plot is complex and full of real surprises - and some rather ODD moments. All the characters are interesting creations. They are all extreme in one way or another, but fleshed out and made believable by the story. Margaret Chisholm, the FBI agent with major attitude and Nicholas Denton, the CIA 'bureaucrat' who is anything but what he seems, are forced to team up in the quest for Sepsis, a precocious assassin who is currently targeting a nun who is about to work on the restoration of St. Peters in Rome. The book starts with a bang and never lets up. There are some false notes: a peculiar use of colloguialisms which seem inappropriate now and then, an exrtra push in some of the violent scenes that seems gratuitous and actions which beg for some explanation or follow through in the plot which is not forthcoming.

Nevertheless, this is an intelligent, cynical, creative book that captures a reader's attention and delights the imagination. It isn't perfect, but it has so many good things going for it that it's hard not to like. I enjoyed it a lot and am looking forward to Lira's next book.

Rating:
Summary: Abysmal -- Utterly Abysmal
Review: I'm astonished that such a poorly-written, cliche-riddled book could be published. This is well below mediocre level.

There's almost an Ed Wood quality of badness to the writing. The first paragraph would have been blue-penciled by any experienced editor (what kind of editors would accept this drivel, I wonder?). My favorite "bad" line, from the book's alleged climax:

"He hit the ground. His head, when it hit, sounded like a bowling ball or a watermelon, hollow." There are dozens of such lines which read like those "inept writing" contest results that circulate via e-mail.

The narration shifts constantly from wisecracky to ponderous, and the sentences are put together by someone with an ear of pure tin. Perhaps it takes a subtle sensibility to detect why this sentence doesn't work:

"(), what a mess, " said Chisholm, her gun in both hands as she toed all the bodies in the kitchen."

I'd like to think it just needs a passing familiarity with good writing, something that Gonzalo Lira obviously does not have.

Rating:
Summary: A good to excellent book, but not of 100% potentials.
Review: In few words, this book tries to combine psychologial thriller elements with a detective story adventure and a spy story adventure. What it finaly delivers is: well described characters and their thoughts, a lot of spy stories' elements with conspiracies, etc., a plot that looks straightforward but has its twists just enough to keep you stung on the book but not to make it intense or participating and of course the action scenes which are in perfect places to keep readers interest "hot". The problem of the book is that the thoughts and psyche of the heroes are mixed inside the adventure scenes and this makes them too litereate and not as tense as should, while on the other hand the attention of the reader is difused. I spot that some other readers thought that the middle of the book is like a "belly". Well perhaps they should reconsider on the psychological thriller elements that Lira is giving and let themselves approach the characterisations of the heroes that is excellent and complete. it couldn't be done otherwise dear readers. Not to forget to mention that narrations are almost excellent and that Lira's language although literate enough is simple on what he wants to deliver, a little poetic in places, but not a Kellerman type that puts you right in the picture (in detail) like you are actually there. I would say then that I must expect his new book to see if it will deliver all that Lira would want it to. It's exactly like the end of the book that delivers the 2/3 of the author's intentions: the spy story twists and Janus-like heroes and of course the psychology.

Rating:
Summary: delicious junk-food
Review: this is an over-the-top, nonstop action novel of cynical intrigue in the world of inter-agency counter-terrorism. Its two (not one)-dimensional characters leave nothing to be desired unless the reader insists upon the depth of personality of a Charles McCarry, who hasnt produced anything in the last 5 years. another reviewer has complained about the author's "tin ear" for dialogue (or narrative, I forget), but this is to say only that the author prefers the acetyline torch to the watercolor brush.

Rating:
Summary: delicious junk-food
Review: this is an over-the-top, nonstop action novel of cynical intrigue in the world of inter-agency counter-terrorism. Its two (not one)-dimensional characters leave nothing to be desired unless the reader insists upon the depth of personality of a Charles McCarry, who hasnt produced anything in the last 5 years. another reviewer has complained about the author's "tin ear" for dialogue (or narrative, I forget), but this is to say only that the author prefers the acetyline torch to the watercolor brush.

Rating:
Summary: Good freshman effort, with potential
Review: This novel doesn't miss a trick--splashy action sequences, interesting and unpredictable characters, and crazy twists and turns. The novel isn't for the fainthearted--some of it is extremely (sometimes needlessly) violent. But what's interesting to me is that the characters walk and talk like real human beings, not cartoons. The ending is spectacular, but some of the middle could've been cut. I hope that on his next book Lira will tone down the violence. All in all, an excellent debut.