Dear Readers,
Today I took advantage of fellow employee Louis McBride's review of a new fiction title. Louis is our academic buyer and usually I find him with his nose in a book that has little on nothing ot do with fiction. There are certian types of fiction books he does like and I try to encourage him to write reviews for them. He doesn't like to review fiction books, but I think he did a great job and it does really help me as I just can't seem to get them all read. :-)
I did include a link to his website at the end of the review, that way you can check out Louis' other reviews.
Happy Reading
“Vigilante” by Robin Parrish – A Review
28 Jun
I started reading Robin Parrish’s book, Vigilante, to kill some time one day and before you knew it I was hooked. I’ve read some of Parrish’s books in the past and enjoyed them. In particular, I enjoyed his Dominion Trilogy (Relentless, Fearless, and Merciless), now regrettably out of print.
Vigilante is very much a guy’s book. The hero of the book, who the media has dubbed “The Hand,” is like a modern day Batman and Rambo all rolled into one with his custom-made body armor and a conglomerate of great gadgets that every super hero should have. As he nears his debut as a crime fighter he’s plastered the country with bill boards announcing a “I will show you a better way.” He realizes his fight must be fought on two fronts: directly confronting criminal activity and secondly, by inspiring people with hope that there is a better way. “The Hand” will be that symbol of hope. Along the way “The Hand” finds himself not only battling a major crime lord (ironically created and empowered largely due to “The Hand’s” crime fighting efforts) but also the President of the United States who is unsure of our hero’s motives and his questionable methods.
Vigilante is full of intense fight scenes and a couple of graphic images of executions. “The Hand” struggles throughout the book with the issues that are raised by someone who’s attempting to do the impossible: change the world. As a previous POW he carries buried deep within him the pain of that experience and he only allows people in to his world when necessary. While the character development is thin you get to know them well enough that by the end of the book you can genuinely feel for them.
http://bbhchurchconnection.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/vigilante-by-robin-parrish-a-review/
Vigilante is very much a guy’s book. The hero of the book, who the media has dubbed “The Hand,” is like a modern day Batman and Rambo all rolled into one with his custom-made body armor and a conglomerate of great gadgets that every super hero should have. As he nears his debut as a crime fighter he’s plastered the country with bill boards announcing a “I will show you a better way.” He realizes his fight must be fought on two fronts: directly confronting criminal activity and secondly, by inspiring people with hope that there is a better way. “The Hand” will be that symbol of hope. Along the way “The Hand” finds himself not only battling a major crime lord (ironically created and empowered largely due to “The Hand’s” crime fighting efforts) but also the President of the United States who is unsure of our hero’s motives and his questionable methods.
Vigilante is full of intense fight scenes and a couple of graphic images of executions. “The Hand” struggles throughout the book with the issues that are raised by someone who’s attempting to do the impossible: change the world. As a previous POW he carries buried deep within him the pain of that experience and he only allows people in to his world when necessary. While the character development is thin you get to know them well enough that by the end of the book you can genuinely feel for them.To be perfectly honest the way Parrish has ended his books has sometimes left me less than satisfied. The same cannot be said of Vigilante. I was very happy with the ending. There were a number of twists which kept me guessing and while I wouldn’t describe the ending as a happy one I would say it is raw and real. Reality forces idealism to face its limitations.
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