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: 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.