Off Pace

Rating:
Summary: A great tale from a smart lass
Review: Brittan Barclay grew up in Michigan, and became a registered nurse, working in her profession for nine years. She worked for eight years as a pacemaker representative for a national company. She has a Ph.D. in Psychology, and degrees in nursing, psychology, creative writing, and biology. Off Pace is her first novel. Her dissertation is now a nonfiction book entitled Everybody Lies, and she is working on her next novel entitled Borderline Obsession.

Meagan is a registered nurse, and is mulling over continuing her education to become a doctor. She has a solid relationship with her doctor boyfriend, Dallas MacGuire, when she is offered a position as a pacemaker representative. The job is lucrative, and Meagan works hard to build her territory as the only female representative. But two problems crop up...one is the obvious sexual overtures which many of her doctors make towards her. The other problem is more sinister, when people associated with the pacemaker industry start turning up murdered. Meagan begins to have life threatening accidents, no one around her believes that her life may be in danger:

"The curtain shifted a bit to her front before Dallas pushed it up over his head and ducked into her stuffy space. 'You've done it again,' he said, briefly squeezing his eyes shut as he shook his head from side to side. 'What am I going to do with you?' He looked and sounded bewildered. 'What did you do? Take them out of your purse? Take a different purse? What? I don't understand? You know...' 'Dallas.' Meagan interrupted. 'I don't know what happened to them. You watched me put three of them in my purse last night. I never took them out."

Off Pace is an intense, adults only story which is fast-paced and extremely well conceived. The plot is nothing short of smashing. Although it is more of a suspense story than a mystery (as there are no prominent investigators in the plot), Barclay does a fine job of masking the true killer until the very last denouement. The story is an "edge-of-your-seat" plot, the characters are liars in the extreme, and the character of Meagan is every woman who tries to navigate the working world with the best of intentions. Barclay knows her stuff in many areas. She is a fine writer, is a knowledgeable nurse, and knows the pacemaker industry well enough to scare the pants off of us non-medical people. A great tale from a smart lass. Off Pace is an excellent first effort.

(...)

Rating:
Summary: A Superb Debut
Review: I found this book by accident. Actually, I was in the mood to take a risk on a new author and Brittan Barclay benefitted, or so I thought.

The person who really benefitted was me. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I don't normally buy medical thrillers so, this is a huge compliment to Ms. Barclay. She knows how to catch a reader's attention, and hold it.

At first, I thought the beginning of this book was weak, but it appears that was only setup and you appreciate the book as a whole more completely upon finishing it.

I highly recommend this novel for people who like 'edge of your seat' action along with complete characterization. I got to hate some of the bad guys instead of just dislike them. I thought about them when I wasn't reading the book.

Good job, Ms. Barclay. I look forward to your next work.

Rating:
Summary: Off Pace Read As Well: Off Pace
Review: Told through the use of extended flashbacks, this novel chronicles Meagan and her ordeals, positive and negative as the sole female pacemaker representative in the St. Petersburg, Florida area. She had always wanted to be a doctor but because of personal and financial reasons she never made it to medical school. She is at the proverbial fork in the road with the choices limited to going to med school or staying put as a registered nurse when suddenly an unexpected third option arises. She is offered a position as a pacemaker rep, which would use her medical training as well as provide a possible high source of income.

She accepts the initial position and soon finds herself dealing with office politics and sexism. Slowly but steadily, she builds her territory depite these obstacles as well as dealing with sexual innuendo in regards to how she is building her business. Over the next eight years, which is detailed quite heavily in the book, the abuse steadily worsens as her income and business share increases. At the same time, she begins to learn of deaths in the medical community as well as having a couple of near misses herself which she believes is all the work of one killer. The police don't agree and long after her pacemaker representative career is over the killer goes after her in a dark hospital room to finish the job once and fore all.

This is a first novel for this author according to the promotional copy and as such certain allowances have to be made. However, beyond the clichéd writing at times, there is a certain lack of balance to the characters. While billed as a novel of suspense, this book is primarily a novel of office politics with limited character development. The killer, which is shown through his point of view, is regulated to a background storyline for most of this book and only towards the very end does he resume his place as a primary storyline.

Megan, the heroine is almost portrayed saint like in a David v. Goliath situation where she is always ethical, does her best, and succeeds depite the efforts of the evil men around her. Other than her relationship with Dallas (her physician boyfriend and then husband as the years pass) almost every single male figure in this novel is scum. The men are portrayed as adulterers, sex fiends of various types, drug and alcohol fiends, racists, sexists and everything else possible with some having all the above traits in one character. Some of the male characters are a bit better and just have a couple of the traits. This is true of the Doctors, the pacemaker executives as well as her fellow reps. In other words; men are unbelievable scum, which is an insult to scum everywhere.

While the working environment may in fact be exactly as it is portrayed, it would be more believable if she had used some of her vast experience to add a couple of decent strong male characters. Instead, with the constant stream of disgusting male behavior as well as comments about the sanctity of life (or lack of same) it begins to read as a commentary indictment rant of almost everyone she ever worked with while the author was a pacemaker rep.

The other major problem with this book is that the author feels the need to show off her degrees and language skills. The author has degrees in Nursing, Psychology, Creative Writing, and Biology in addition to her PhD in Psychology. That may explain why narration is portrayed such as:

"After peeking around the opening and seeing no one, she slinked her way back beyond a bench pinched between two rows of matching lockers to an aperture baring a small dictation area emitting bedroom susurrations."

Dialogue is often written the same way or in such a way that one can't comprehend someone in real life speaking that way. For example,

"If Garret was flinging water balloons, the one that hit Megan contained caustic soda. She was stinging. 'You know, Garrett,' Megan said. 'I resent your insinuations and accusations. They're outright diabolical lies only someone as nefarious as you would dare utter. But, I'm your virus, Garrett. One that's not only potent, but chronic. And no matter how earnest and fierce your attempts to eradicate me are, I'll keep infiltrating and attacking. And just when you think you've wiped me out, I'll mutate impressively, then zap you even more aggressively, you got that?"

Not only does that make me think of a bronchitis infection I had a few years back all winter, but it does not sound like anything anyone in real life would say. While these are two small examples, such over writing runs rampant throughout the novel as the author shows a penchant for using complicated words and phraseology when simplification would work better.

Despite its problems, this novel does hold reader interest. She portrays an industry where the patient comes a far second to the pursuit of money no matter the cost. For those of us with chronic and permanent debilitating health problems, this isn't surprising. At the same time, if even half the stuff depicted in this thinly disguised novel actually happened, it becomes a call to action to clean up the medical sales industry as well as the medical profession itself.

Overall, despite its problems, this is a fairly enjoyable novel. The author shows potential and with editorial assistance, she has the potential to write some good suspense novels.