One Bad Thing

Rating:
Summary: One False Move, Then Your Life Totally Changed
Review: Bill Edison now has become even greater. The writing, the plot, the...., almost everything is good. He should be nominated for many literary or mystery awards, don't know why didn't get too much attention so far. Got marketing problem? Or, the critics simply too jealous of his talents? Only a few writers out there could have written all the books and every one of them is good! I am a split-the-hair reader, but I could never become picky against Mr. Edison. All I could do is holding my breath awaiting his next one. Live healthily, Mr. Edison, enjoy the longest writng era with your wonderful Muse and, thanks.

Rating:
Summary: ONE GREAT BOOK
Review: Ever picked up a book without knowing a thing about it? You just got this itch, probably somewhere deep inside the most primitive area of your brainstem, and it not only drew you to the book, but kept you super-glued to it all the way to page 348. And, like Super Glue(R), it wouldn't let you go. . . . ONE BAD THING by master storyteller Bill Eidson is that very book. And Bill's Super Glue is his unique ability to write just enough of a good thing, without detracting from his brilliantly told story.

Simple and elegant.

It was a Friday night a week or so ago, and I was sitting at the computer, breezing through Amazon.com's Mystery section. As I scrolled down, something caught my eye; I never even paid attention to it, because it was undefined. All I know is that ONE BAD THING arrived two days later, and I recall ripping off the packaging, clutching it under my arm, and running for the bedroom. After a few minutes of setting up my nest of 13 or so pillows, I dived right into Bill's gift. . . .

Ten hours later, I found myself wishing the remaining 500 pages would soon show up at my doorstep.

Bill dreamed up half a dozen true-to-life characters, esp. Rob McKenna, the protagonist who appears to fall into the old "Good Initiative, Bad Judgement" trap. McKenna's heart is fresh from the blender: his daughter Samantha is killed by . . . and his marriage to his soulmate Caroline is crashing into the surf with the incoming tide.

On a sailing voyage from the British Virgin Islands, McKenna, sans Caroline who leaves him alone in Tortuga, takes on a young fast-talking (not to mention dangerous!) Tom Cain as his deckhand. The moment McKenna disregards his own keen intuition, which raises more than one red flag over Cain, he begins to take on water and start the slow, downward death spiral.

On the way down, he runs the gauntlet of near-death encounters with notorious organized-crime figures, and continually faces his own reflection. As in the beginning, McKenna ignores his intuition, throws caution to the wind, and gets inexorably tangled in a sticky web of intrigue, drama, murder, and money.

Bill turns on the afterburners at Chapter 23, after a nice trot that keeps you on your toes without letting up. If you're not in great cardiovascular shape, then I advise renting a "crash cart" with a defibrillator that's had a recent servicing. A tank of 100% oxygen might be in order, too. I'm in super shape, with a resting heart rate of 50 beats/min. When I met Tom Cain, and tried to warn Rob McKenna about him, my heart rate jumped to 75 and stayed there 'til Chapter 23 rolled around, then accelerated into the red zone for the remainder of the story.

ONE BAD THING brings to mind a great movie years ago, Into The Night, with Jeff Goldblum, who plays an insomniac that goes for a leisurely walk late one night, and ends up caught in Michelle Pfeiffer's nightmare. The premise and message are similar: Good Initiative, Bad Judgement.

Even though the long summer reading season is now over, it wouldn't be overindulgent to pick up ONE BAD THING . . . Go ahead, treat yourself.

Just remember the "crash cart" and oxygen.

Dean Garner, Santa Barbara, CA

P.S. Hey, Bill, what about those extra 500 pages!?

Rating:
Summary: ONE GREAT BOOK
Review: I had the good fortune to discover Bill Eidson when I picked up his THE GUARDIAN, a knockout thriller which led me to his ADRENALINE then to FRAMES PER SECOND. One after the other, Eidson's books are page-turning thrillers written with grit, wit, and sensibility. And now ONE BAD THING has confirmed my belief that this guy is a first-rate story teller and deserves the mantle of the late great John D. Macdonald as one reviewer has proclaimed. This is a gem of a book that keeps the pages turning while exploring important moral issues that speak to us all.

Rating:
Summary: One Bad Decision Can Change Your Life
Review: Rob McKenna and his wife, Catherine, decide to sell their home and cruise the world on their sailboat, in order to rebuild their lives following the tragic death of their teenage daughter. But their marriage seems beyond repair, and half way through the journey she leaves him and flies home, leaving him to sail back alone from the Caribbean. He picks up a crew-mate, Tom Cain, without really knowing anything about him, and then things start to go wrong.

Tom has smuggled diamonds onto the boat, and agrees to share the bounty with Rob if he promises not to reveal the contraband to the customs authorities. This "one bad thing" starts to snowball. Tom tries to kill Rob before the boat reaches the Boston harbor, and out of self-defense Rob ends up killing Tom and another accomplice. Tom just wants the problem to go away so he can return to his old life, get back together with Catherine and start over.

But "one bad thing" leads to another. Rob is pursued by some nasty thugs who want the diamonds back, and the plot starts to get more complicated and less believable. The first half of the book was fast-paced and intriguing. After Rob returned to land and got more and more involved in evading the criminals, the plot got tedious and unrealistic. The dialogue and the characters were ludicrous and unbelievable, and the plot overly complicated and torturous.