Orion

LIBERATION ROAD is billed as a novel of World War II, but it's really a story of two men.  Rabbi Ben Kahn is a Chaplain with the American Army in France - his personal crusade is to find out what happened to his son - a missing fighter pilot.   Joe Amos is a black truck driver on the Red Ball, supplying the military machine, somehow not quite equal to those he is fighting with.  Whilst Joe and Ben, in separate parts of the same theatre for most of the story, struggle with their own personal demons, an American man makes his fortune in the Black Market in Paris.  Is this mysterious Chien Blanc Ben's missing son?

 

The concentration of LIBERATION ROAD is on Joe and Ben's individual wars.  There's a very intimate, personal feeling to their stories which makes this the sort of book that the characters are absolutely central to.  There's little by way of coverage of the full horror of the Second World War to the local people, or any acknowledgment of the rest of the Allies fighting.  There are some small cameo's by two local French people in Joe's story - a romantic attachment in particular which could be seen as poignant on the face of it, but as it ends, there's little opportunity to understand what war has done to those locals trying to simply survive in such appalling circumstances.  Whilst Joe and Ben struggle with the war that goes on around them - how to cope with the divide between white soldiers and black truck drivers; how to comfort the badly wounded and the dying; in Paris, Chien Blanc ruthlessly makes his money and lives as high a life as you possibly could under an occupation.  The reader knows he is an American, but who is he really?

 

Ben and Joe slowly move towards each other (without knowing it), until a climax point of the book where the advance of the American Army is temporarily interrupted with profound results for both men.  Ultimately, with LIBERATION ROAD the reader has to connect completely with Ben and Joe,  be involved in their stories, their war; care whether Ben can ever find the truth about his son; whether Joe stays alive and gets home to his family; how their individual experience will affect both men for the rest of their lives.  

 

Dearly Devoted Dexter is the second book from Jeff Lindsay "staring" forensic blood splatter specialist and serial killer Dexter Morgan. Dexter is, by his own observation, not exactly a normal human being. He has a busy sideline in righteous serial killings - he kills people who undoubtedly have avoided retribution for crimes they have committed. Dexter and his darker side "The Dark Passenger" work very hard at their chosen craft and Dexter spends a large amount of time explaining himself, his motives and his methods in an internal voice, shared with the reader.

 

Dexter was adopted as a small child and his foster father, a cop himself, taught him all sorts of tricks whilst grooming him for his role of avenging angel. His sister, Deborah, was groomed for a role in the police force and it is her Dexter is having lunch with one day (she knows all about Dexter's extra-curricula activities) when they are called to a particularly gruesome crime scene. Dexter develops a sneaking sense of regard for a serial offender who has a line in gruesome that makes Dexter look like a bit of an amateur. Meanwhile Dexter is quietly executing his own plans for some retribution against a pair of child molesters. Unfortunately this plan is being seriously interfered with by local Police Sergeant Doakes who is absolutely convinced that Dexter is up to something and undertakes some pretty close surveillance.

 

Dexter's own crime scenes are elaborate and graphically described but that is absolutely nothing compared to the crimes that he finds himself having to investigate, firstly, by happy co-incidence with Doakes, which gets Doakes off his own back and away from his own activities. Secondly because his sister's own personal life is involved.

 

As in the first Dexter book (Darkly Dreaming Dexter) there is a heavy dose of black humour in DEARLY DEVOTED DEXTER. Dexter is very self-deprecating, whilst simultaneously firmly convinced of the necessity of his actions. Nearly all of the insights into Dexter and how or why he does what he does are through Dexter's own internal musings. This provides an unusual insight into the mind of Dexter the serial killer but I could see how after a couple of books you could possibly be wishing that Dexter would just stop talking for just a few pages. Black humour, slightly on the heavy handed side with a very unusual central character, it will be interesting to see how long the Dexter series can continue.