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The Clarke Lantham Mysteries #1
And Then She Was Gone
Disgraced former cop Clarke Lantham doesn't mind making his living as a PI. He doesn't mind the long hours, living in his office, or even dealing with bill collectors, because it keeps him in the city--as close to heaven as he's ever likely to get.
Fortunately, the world needs private detectives. Unfortunately for Lantham, on this particular Saturday morning, "the world" consists of a fretful mother with a missing daughter, and the place he has to go look for her has a name every bit as ominous as Suburbia.
With only a teenager's blog and diaries to go on, and time running out, Lantham chases puzzle pieces from the posh shadow of Mount Diablo to the kink clubs of San Francisco to the genetic engineering labs of Stanford. Tailed by mercenaries, framed for murder, and forced into hiding, he somehow must keep his head in the face of a world where the normal rules of reality don't seem to apply--all for the sake of a nineteen-year-old girl whose face he sees every time he closes his eyes.
Fortunately, the world needs private detectives. Unfortunately for Lantham, on this particular Saturday morning, "the world" consists of a fretful mother with a missing daughter, and the place he has to go look for her has a name every bit as ominous as Suburbia.
With only a teenager's blog and diaries to go on, and time running out, Lantham chases puzzle pieces from the posh shadow of Mount Diablo to the kink clubs of San Francisco to the genetic engineering labs of Stanford. Tailed by mercenaries, framed for murder, and forced into hiding, he somehow must keep his head in the face of a world where the normal rules of reality don't seem to apply--all for the sake of a nineteen-year-old girl whose face he sees every time he closes his eyes.
250 pages, ebook
First published October 6, 2010
About the author
J. Daniel Sawyer
74 books44 followersWHILE STAR WARS and STAR TREK seeded J. Daniel Sawyer's passion for the unknown, his childhood in academia gave him a deep love of history and an obsession with how the future emerges from the past.
This obsession led him through adventures in the film industry, the music industry, venture capital firms in the startup culture of Silicon Valley, and a career creating novels and audiobooks exploring the worlds that assemble themselves in his head.
His travels with bohemians, burners, historians, theologians, and inventors led him eventually to a rural exile where he uses the quiet to write, walk on the beach, and manage a production company that brings innovative stories to the ears of audiences across the world.
For stories, contact info, podcasts, and more, visit his home page at http://www.jdsawyer.net
This obsession led him through adventures in the film industry, the music industry, venture capital firms in the startup culture of Silicon Valley, and a career creating novels and audiobooks exploring the worlds that assemble themselves in his head.
His travels with bohemians, burners, historians, theologians, and inventors led him eventually to a rural exile where he uses the quiet to write, walk on the beach, and manage a production company that brings innovative stories to the ears of audiences across the world.
For stories, contact info, podcasts, and more, visit his home page at http://www.jdsawyer.net
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
October 13, 2010
Detective stories have gone hand-in-hand with cheap, ephemeral entertainment since Arthur Conan Doyle published the first adventure of Sherlock Holmes in the November 1887 issue of a paperback magazine. The "pulp" adventures of the Twenties and Thirties got their name from the inexpensive paper on which they were printed; it was in these flimsy dime-store magazines that the American noir detective was born, and people bought them by the millions. In the 1950s, when the mass-market paperback became the new standard for bargain reading material, mystery readers snapped them up faster than the M&Ms in a bowl of trail mix. And now, as the e-book market finally becomes a serious player in publishing, who's leading the way in sales? You guessed it: mystery writers.
It isn't hard to see why. A good detective mystery doesn't lend itself to slow, leisurely reading and re-reading. It grabs you by the throat from the first page, keeps you on the edge of your seat as the story unfolds, and carries you along to a surprising, satisfying conclusion. A second reading will never reproduce that sense of confusion, suspense, and foreboding that keeps you turning the pages; you already know the end of the story. Mystery lovers go through a LOT of books, and they go through them fast. With a literary appetite like that, you're not going to be buying hardcovers. Even if the expense weren't an issue, the weight and bulk would be a major drag when you're wandering around the house with your book in one hand and the vacuum cleaner in the other.
AND THEN SHE WAS GONE is a book tailor-made for the modern mystery reader. First off, there's the amazing price -- half the cost of a mass market paperback, and less than a lot of people pay for their morning lattes. Even if you're not familiar with J. Daniel Sawyer's ground-breaking work in the realm of podcast fiction, including the country house mystery DOWN FROM TEN and the science fiction noir thriller PREDESTINATION, the price point is low enough that anybody looking for a good story should be willing to give it a try.
Second, there's the pacing. This is a taut, gripping mystery with prose so tight you could bounce a quarter off it. The plot twists and turns through the glitz and the gutters of the San Francisco Bay Area: from the suburban drug trade of the Oakland Hills, through a bioethics symposium at Stanford, to the kink/bondage scene of the City itself. Detective Clarke Lantham narrates the action in a tight, spare and sardonic voice that captures the spirit of the noir detective genre without falling prey to its verbal excesses.
That bring me to the third selling point: this is very much a *modern* pulp mystery. On the one hand, Lantham is a classic noir detective in many ways: a disgraced and jaded ex-cop, haunted by his demons, hungering for some kind of personal redemption, woefully single, struggling to keep his financial head above water, living by his own code of ethics. On the other hand, Lantham is a twenty-first century man through and through, with the detective tools to match. It's hard to envision Sam Spade tracking a suspect with the GPS locator on a disposable cell phone, using a script hack on a Facebook account to find a missing person, or cruising around an upper-middle class neighborhood with an open laptop in search of a Wi-Fi connection. The themes of the plot are modern, too, with a mystery that tackles tough topics like bioethics, neo-primitivism and man's responsibilities to the rest of the biosphere -- as well as more down-to-earth fare, like the complex social networks of modern American teenagers. It is this fresh, modern spin on the classic detective tropes that makes the book so distinctive and compelling.
AND THEN SHE WAS GONE is not a perfect book. The plot takes some liberties with science that strain the limits of the plausible. For the average reader this might not be a big deal; after all, best-selling authors have asked us for similarly-improbable leaps of faith in the past, and no one seems to have complained too much. For me, having been trained as a scientist, it was a bit harder to swallow.
What the average mystery reader might find more troublesome, however, is that Lantham doesn't even uncover some of his most important clues on his own. In a move that might be a little *too* 21st Century, Lantham hires a subcontractor to handle the heavy-duty techno-sleuthing for him. Our hero gets several crucial pieces of the puzzle, not through his own cleverness or resourcefulness or courage, but because he "knows a guy". It feels a bit like using "Phone A Friend" on the last question of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire: effective, sure, but a little anticlimactic.
Still, it's important to take the book for what it is. Pulp adventures are not about die-hard realism, or even about the detective proving himself to be smarter than his adversaries. No, what matters for the pulp detective is how he uses the information he finds, and whether he can get himself and his charges out of danger in one piece. In this, AND THEN SHE WAS GONE delivers beautifully, with a white-knuckled climax full of all the bullets, blood and pulse-pounding excitement you could ask for.
The book is subtitled "A Clarke Lantham Mystery", hinting that Sawyer has more mysteries in the works for his beleaguered detective. AND THEN SHE WAS GONE certainly drops some tantalizing hints for the future: Lantham makes some enemies in this book, and from the look of it they are NOT the sort of people you want to piss off. If the last ten pages don't leave you clamoring for the next book in the series, I don't know what's wrong with you. Hollywood wishes it could write sequel-bait this good.
The Verdict: With an engaging and fully modern shamus, a fast-paced narrative style and a mystery that probes the bleeding edges of science and culture, AND THEN SHE WAS GONE sets the standard for a new age of pulp-noir adventure.
It isn't hard to see why. A good detective mystery doesn't lend itself to slow, leisurely reading and re-reading. It grabs you by the throat from the first page, keeps you on the edge of your seat as the story unfolds, and carries you along to a surprising, satisfying conclusion. A second reading will never reproduce that sense of confusion, suspense, and foreboding that keeps you turning the pages; you already know the end of the story. Mystery lovers go through a LOT of books, and they go through them fast. With a literary appetite like that, you're not going to be buying hardcovers. Even if the expense weren't an issue, the weight and bulk would be a major drag when you're wandering around the house with your book in one hand and the vacuum cleaner in the other.
AND THEN SHE WAS GONE is a book tailor-made for the modern mystery reader. First off, there's the amazing price -- half the cost of a mass market paperback, and less than a lot of people pay for their morning lattes. Even if you're not familiar with J. Daniel Sawyer's ground-breaking work in the realm of podcast fiction, including the country house mystery DOWN FROM TEN and the science fiction noir thriller PREDESTINATION, the price point is low enough that anybody looking for a good story should be willing to give it a try.
Second, there's the pacing. This is a taut, gripping mystery with prose so tight you could bounce a quarter off it. The plot twists and turns through the glitz and the gutters of the San Francisco Bay Area: from the suburban drug trade of the Oakland Hills, through a bioethics symposium at Stanford, to the kink/bondage scene of the City itself. Detective Clarke Lantham narrates the action in a tight, spare and sardonic voice that captures the spirit of the noir detective genre without falling prey to its verbal excesses.
That bring me to the third selling point: this is very much a *modern* pulp mystery. On the one hand, Lantham is a classic noir detective in many ways: a disgraced and jaded ex-cop, haunted by his demons, hungering for some kind of personal redemption, woefully single, struggling to keep his financial head above water, living by his own code of ethics. On the other hand, Lantham is a twenty-first century man through and through, with the detective tools to match. It's hard to envision Sam Spade tracking a suspect with the GPS locator on a disposable cell phone, using a script hack on a Facebook account to find a missing person, or cruising around an upper-middle class neighborhood with an open laptop in search of a Wi-Fi connection. The themes of the plot are modern, too, with a mystery that tackles tough topics like bioethics, neo-primitivism and man's responsibilities to the rest of the biosphere -- as well as more down-to-earth fare, like the complex social networks of modern American teenagers. It is this fresh, modern spin on the classic detective tropes that makes the book so distinctive and compelling.
AND THEN SHE WAS GONE is not a perfect book. The plot takes some liberties with science that strain the limits of the plausible. For the average reader this might not be a big deal; after all, best-selling authors have asked us for similarly-improbable leaps of faith in the past, and no one seems to have complained too much. For me, having been trained as a scientist, it was a bit harder to swallow.
What the average mystery reader might find more troublesome, however, is that Lantham doesn't even uncover some of his most important clues on his own. In a move that might be a little *too* 21st Century, Lantham hires a subcontractor to handle the heavy-duty techno-sleuthing for him. Our hero gets several crucial pieces of the puzzle, not through his own cleverness or resourcefulness or courage, but because he "knows a guy". It feels a bit like using "Phone A Friend" on the last question of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire: effective, sure, but a little anticlimactic.
Still, it's important to take the book for what it is. Pulp adventures are not about die-hard realism, or even about the detective proving himself to be smarter than his adversaries. No, what matters for the pulp detective is how he uses the information he finds, and whether he can get himself and his charges out of danger in one piece. In this, AND THEN SHE WAS GONE delivers beautifully, with a white-knuckled climax full of all the bullets, blood and pulse-pounding excitement you could ask for.
The book is subtitled "A Clarke Lantham Mystery", hinting that Sawyer has more mysteries in the works for his beleaguered detective. AND THEN SHE WAS GONE certainly drops some tantalizing hints for the future: Lantham makes some enemies in this book, and from the look of it they are NOT the sort of people you want to piss off. If the last ten pages don't leave you clamoring for the next book in the series, I don't know what's wrong with you. Hollywood wishes it could write sequel-bait this good.
The Verdict: With an engaging and fully modern shamus, a fast-paced narrative style and a mystery that probes the bleeding edges of science and culture, AND THEN SHE WAS GONE sets the standard for a new age of pulp-noir adventure.
November 1, 2010
And Then She Was Gone is a modern noir detective novel that follows the tropes and the formulas faithfully without ever becoming trite or predictable. It will be well received by fans of Sara Paretsky (V.I. Warshawski novels) and Robert Parker (Spenser novels).
The detective is sharp without being omniscient, snarky without being annoying, and goodhearted without being a paragon.
If there's any complaint with the book, it's that his secondary characters don't get quite enough attention, but that's common in the first book of a series. I hope that they'll get some more spotlight time in future volumes, they showed great promise.
I've been a fan of J Daniel Sawyer ever since I discovered his podcast, and this book is a worthy addition to his already impressive ouvre.
Wait, did I just use 'ouvre' in a review? Damn. Alright, that's my signal to be done.
Buy this book, folks.
The detective is sharp without being omniscient, snarky without being annoying, and goodhearted without being a paragon.
If there's any complaint with the book, it's that his secondary characters don't get quite enough attention, but that's common in the first book of a series. I hope that they'll get some more spotlight time in future volumes, they showed great promise.
I've been a fan of J Daniel Sawyer ever since I discovered his podcast, and this book is a worthy addition to his already impressive ouvre.
Wait, did I just use 'ouvre' in a review? Damn. Alright, that's my signal to be done.
Buy this book, folks.
June 23, 2018
Saturday afternoon a paranoid mother of a young women enters the office of Clarke Lantham, down on he's luck private investigator. Her daughter is missing, the police will not help as yet and she's frantic for information.
Lantham's investigations leads him through the seedier side of San Francisco and brings him, ultimately face to face with the consequences of genetic engineering.
The build-up is a bit slow but once the pace picks up it runs away with you.
Lantham's investigations leads him through the seedier side of San Francisco and brings him, ultimately face to face with the consequences of genetic engineering.
The build-up is a bit slow but once the pace picks up it runs away with you.
October 26, 2010
I was thoroughly pleased when Dan Sawyer begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting offered to send me a reviewer’s copy of And Then She Was Gone. I enjoy his writing style and I’m also a fan of detective stories, so I couldn’t wait to see what he was going to do with it. It also gave me something else to put on my iPhone to continue testing it as an e-reader. Yes, Dan’s publishing it as an e-book and selling it through Amazon and Smashwords. Add to that, for me as a publisher, it’s always exciting to see authors continuing to test the electronic publishing space as a first, rather than a last, resort.
So, onto the review. There’s a lot of “noir” in this. While I’m no expert on the genre, I’ve seen my share of takes on it both light hearted and traditional. It has all of the elements you might expect. Clarke Lantham is a private eye and the story is told in first person. He has a girl Friday and the story opens with an attractive woman walking into his office. It also has the sort of content that would be considered “lurid” enough for a twenty-first century audience. If all of this seems a bit too “on the nose”, for me at least it was ameliorated by a thoroughly modern take on these elements.
Lantham is a very fallible detective, prone to errors in judgment and very human, believable motives. He’s hardly the iron jawed detective I recall from my exposure to the genre. His office assistant, a grad student working through her interneship, kicks his butt as much as she helps him out. While a bit of sass might be expected from a P.I.’s secretary, Rachel’s hardly satisfied to stay in that role. Finally, the good looking, wealthy client you’d expect to see is interested in finding out what’s happened to her daughter. I can’t recall having seen a noir with an over-protective soccer mom as the P.I.’s client so that’s anohter nice twist on the genre.
Speaking of twists, the trail that the various clues Lantham uncovers leads him down a dark and convoluted path. From a bondage clubs and patrol cars to wealthy neighborhoods and universities, he covers the depth and breadth of San Francisco. I won’t give anymore away, save to say where it ends up isn’t anywhere near where I thought it would go. That’s actually something I’ve come to expect from Dan’s work.
So what’s to like? The thing about first person narratives is that you spend a lot of time in one person’s head. You don’t necessarily have to like that narrator, though that often helps, but they have to be interesting. There isn’t much to like about Lantham. He’s not exactly cuddly. He’s not afraid to lie, steal, or do (almost) anything to get the job done. When he gets roughed up, shot at, or otherwise abused I wasn’t really broken up about it. In fact those were some of the more fun bits of story. Still, Dan has a knack for taking a jerk like this and making him interesting enough for you to care about what he’s doing and what happens to him.
The other thing that really appealed to me about this book was its sense of realism. I get the sense from what I know of Dan that he’s a research junkie. Whether or not that’s the case, he’s very thorough. Upon finishing this story, I was left with a sense of what it feels like to be a detective in our modern age. Lantham’s use of technology, particularly hacking Facebook accounts, data mining, and the ubiquitous cellphone, appeals to a geek like me. He also takes advantage of (literally and figuratively) a number of experts. As much as I like detectives such as Sherlock Holmes, having a protagonist with a less than exhaustive knowledge of everything under the sun is good as well.
I only have a couple of gripes with this on the whole, one minor and one major. First, there’s a question of language. Dan does love his F-bomb. While cursing generally doesn’t bother me in fiction or in life, it can get distracting here. I suppose in this case it can be defended as realistic given the gritty nature of the tale in question, but it still seemed excessive. That’s the minor quibble though and for some, perhaps most, it might not be an issue at all.
The bigger problem I have, and I don’t want to give anything crucial away so I’ll be a little obtuse, is a matter of science that’s a large plot point. I’m no scientist and I’m not up on my research in this area. However, given how realistic the rest of the story seems, the tech in question strikes me as being more at home in the realm of science fiction. While it doesn’t hurt the story per se, it was jarring.
Is the story worth the price of admission? This e-book costs $3.20. In a market where authors/publishers/consumers are still trying to figure out what an electronic product is worth you see prices all over the place. You can get a lot of fiction for free and quite a bit for $.99. A lot of those examples are worth exactly what you’re asked to pay. I think in this case, if you aren’t a reader that’s bothered with the language, it’s a good investment. It’s a quick read and one that I think would bear up under multiple readings. I give it four out of five Maltese Falcons.
So, onto the review. There’s a lot of “noir” in this. While I’m no expert on the genre, I’ve seen my share of takes on it both light hearted and traditional. It has all of the elements you might expect. Clarke Lantham is a private eye and the story is told in first person. He has a girl Friday and the story opens with an attractive woman walking into his office. It also has the sort of content that would be considered “lurid” enough for a twenty-first century audience. If all of this seems a bit too “on the nose”, for me at least it was ameliorated by a thoroughly modern take on these elements.
Lantham is a very fallible detective, prone to errors in judgment and very human, believable motives. He’s hardly the iron jawed detective I recall from my exposure to the genre. His office assistant, a grad student working through her interneship, kicks his butt as much as she helps him out. While a bit of sass might be expected from a P.I.’s secretary, Rachel’s hardly satisfied to stay in that role. Finally, the good looking, wealthy client you’d expect to see is interested in finding out what’s happened to her daughter. I can’t recall having seen a noir with an over-protective soccer mom as the P.I.’s client so that’s anohter nice twist on the genre.
Speaking of twists, the trail that the various clues Lantham uncovers leads him down a dark and convoluted path. From a bondage clubs and patrol cars to wealthy neighborhoods and universities, he covers the depth and breadth of San Francisco. I won’t give anymore away, save to say where it ends up isn’t anywhere near where I thought it would go. That’s actually something I’ve come to expect from Dan’s work.
So what’s to like? The thing about first person narratives is that you spend a lot of time in one person’s head. You don’t necessarily have to like that narrator, though that often helps, but they have to be interesting. There isn’t much to like about Lantham. He’s not exactly cuddly. He’s not afraid to lie, steal, or do (almost) anything to get the job done. When he gets roughed up, shot at, or otherwise abused I wasn’t really broken up about it. In fact those were some of the more fun bits of story. Still, Dan has a knack for taking a jerk like this and making him interesting enough for you to care about what he’s doing and what happens to him.
The other thing that really appealed to me about this book was its sense of realism. I get the sense from what I know of Dan that he’s a research junkie. Whether or not that’s the case, he’s very thorough. Upon finishing this story, I was left with a sense of what it feels like to be a detective in our modern age. Lantham’s use of technology, particularly hacking Facebook accounts, data mining, and the ubiquitous cellphone, appeals to a geek like me. He also takes advantage of (literally and figuratively) a number of experts. As much as I like detectives such as Sherlock Holmes, having a protagonist with a less than exhaustive knowledge of everything under the sun is good as well.
I only have a couple of gripes with this on the whole, one minor and one major. First, there’s a question of language. Dan does love his F-bomb. While cursing generally doesn’t bother me in fiction or in life, it can get distracting here. I suppose in this case it can be defended as realistic given the gritty nature of the tale in question, but it still seemed excessive. That’s the minor quibble though and for some, perhaps most, it might not be an issue at all.
The bigger problem I have, and I don’t want to give anything crucial away so I’ll be a little obtuse, is a matter of science that’s a large plot point. I’m no scientist and I’m not up on my research in this area. However, given how realistic the rest of the story seems, the tech in question strikes me as being more at home in the realm of science fiction. While it doesn’t hurt the story per se, it was jarring.
Is the story worth the price of admission? This e-book costs $3.20. In a market where authors/publishers/consumers are still trying to figure out what an electronic product is worth you see prices all over the place. You can get a lot of fiction for free and quite a bit for $.99. A lot of those examples are worth exactly what you’re asked to pay. I think in this case, if you aren’t a reader that’s bothered with the language, it’s a good investment. It’s a quick read and one that I think would bear up under multiple readings. I give it four out of five Maltese Falcons.
May 20, 2018
This otherwise somewhat interesting story has a most unsatisfactory conclusion. I hate that. In my view, authors owe their readers an ending.
December 30, 2010
Clarke Latham is a cynical PI who's been around the block a few times. With his background on the police force and his jaded life experiences, not much surprises him anymore. When he accepts a job tracking down a wayward adult daughter, he finds himself entrenched in a mystery that extends far beyond this young woman and her proclivity for risk-taking and sexual promiscuity. Something's not quite right about this case- or this girl- and Clarke is going to get to the bottom of this mystery... or die trying.
Taking us on a whirlwind tour in short order, J. Daniel Sawyer has pulled out all the stops. The moment I read the first page, it brought to mind the classic noir image of a darkened PI office, a busty blond walking in, and the hard-talking, innocently cynical banter between them. Hard boiled detective novels are not at typical genre for me. That being said, I wonder why I haven't read more; I was hooked from the beginning. There were very few slow spots, but I must admit to being confused by some of the action scenes. In keeping with the pithy and witty writing style so suited to this genre, those scenes lacked a depth that would have allowed me to follow along a little better. No wasted words in this novel, with the exception of the kind of over-description that recalls the banter between Maddie and David in the TV series "Moonlighting." Clarke mostly seemed to banter with himself (or, essentially, the reader), and some of the more succinct paragraphs were sometimes grating when they came one after another. I noticed this more towards the latter half of the novel. It worked for me in most of the book, but left me a little cold in some of the intense action, where I struggled to keep up with too few words to guide me.
The storyline adds a modern twist to this genre, and it's pretty compelling to try to follow the tantalizing little clues to determine who did what and, most importantly, why. Quite a bit of the storyline (and what Clarke thinks about it) is shared via Clarke's ruminations on his progress, which was great for me in the beginning, but it started to wear a bit towards the second half of the book. I wanted this lone star to have a foil with whom to interact. Rachael, his intern who is much more present in the end of the story and only pops up briefly here and there before that, would have been perfect as that foil. With a little more "screen time" for Rachael, Clarke would have had a Maddie for his David, and that would have had the added advantage of letting us get to know him through another lens. Clarke had an interesting head full of thoughts, but I didn't want to spend quite so much time just in his head.
Stylistically, this book fits its genre rather well. Clarke's and Nya's characters were as developed as they should be for this type of book, with the other characters a little less so. It was pretty well-edited, with only a few minor errors here and there. Like any good serialized novel, the ending leaves you with the hint of a possible adversary, as yet a mystery, who may rear her head again in future stories. Fortunately, fans of the book won't have to wait long for the next book- it's already out.Overall, a nicely written, modernized hard boiled detective story. Witty and pithy, with a storyline that keeps you engaged, this is a recommended read.
@MotherLode blog
Taking us on a whirlwind tour in short order, J. Daniel Sawyer has pulled out all the stops. The moment I read the first page, it brought to mind the classic noir image of a darkened PI office, a busty blond walking in, and the hard-talking, innocently cynical banter between them. Hard boiled detective novels are not at typical genre for me. That being said, I wonder why I haven't read more; I was hooked from the beginning. There were very few slow spots, but I must admit to being confused by some of the action scenes. In keeping with the pithy and witty writing style so suited to this genre, those scenes lacked a depth that would have allowed me to follow along a little better. No wasted words in this novel, with the exception of the kind of over-description that recalls the banter between Maddie and David in the TV series "Moonlighting." Clarke mostly seemed to banter with himself (or, essentially, the reader), and some of the more succinct paragraphs were sometimes grating when they came one after another. I noticed this more towards the latter half of the novel. It worked for me in most of the book, but left me a little cold in some of the intense action, where I struggled to keep up with too few words to guide me.
The storyline adds a modern twist to this genre, and it's pretty compelling to try to follow the tantalizing little clues to determine who did what and, most importantly, why. Quite a bit of the storyline (and what Clarke thinks about it) is shared via Clarke's ruminations on his progress, which was great for me in the beginning, but it started to wear a bit towards the second half of the book. I wanted this lone star to have a foil with whom to interact. Rachael, his intern who is much more present in the end of the story and only pops up briefly here and there before that, would have been perfect as that foil. With a little more "screen time" for Rachael, Clarke would have had a Maddie for his David, and that would have had the added advantage of letting us get to know him through another lens. Clarke had an interesting head full of thoughts, but I didn't want to spend quite so much time just in his head.
Stylistically, this book fits its genre rather well. Clarke's and Nya's characters were as developed as they should be for this type of book, with the other characters a little less so. It was pretty well-edited, with only a few minor errors here and there. Like any good serialized novel, the ending leaves you with the hint of a possible adversary, as yet a mystery, who may rear her head again in future stories. Fortunately, fans of the book won't have to wait long for the next book- it's already out.Overall, a nicely written, modernized hard boiled detective story. Witty and pithy, with a storyline that keeps you engaged, this is a recommended read.
@MotherLode blog
October 25, 2010
This book did not grab me from the very first page. The voice of the narrator grated on me at the beginning, the noirisms coming a bit too fast and thick for my taste. I was ready to declare it Not For Me if my brows had to rise any higher. Thankfully, the tone settles down and the action picks up towards the second and third chapters, and I didn't have much problem with it the rest of the book. My brain skipped over most of the San Francisco geography because I'm not familiar with the area, but it did lend just enough local color without going overboard.
It was a fast read for me, only a few hours. As I hit the halfway point and all the threads started drawing together, I couldn't put it down--since it's an e-book, that means I barely checked Twitter and saved all incoming links to read later, a thing that is rare for my Internet attention span. The pacing of the book was pitch-perfect; Sawyer really shows his talent for the landslide finish. Since I'm better acquainted with the hydra-headed third-person-limited POV of his other book PREDESTINATION AND OTHER GAMES OF CHANCE, it was interesting to experience the tight first-person POV of AND THEN SHE WAS GONE. In some ways this choice of POV is limiting, as only the protagonist is given much chance to exposit and the antagonist/s's motivations and the effects of their actions on secondary characters are mostly unclear or thinly explored: but unreliable narrator's privilege may be a function of the genre.
I wasn't left guessing 'til the end, but that was okay. I figured out one key plot point 30 pages before the protagonist, and another about 10 pages early. Probably because the groundwork reminded me of two other stories, which I can't actually mention here to avoid spoilers. Other twists were definitely a surprise. Despite the tense and sometimes gruesome plot, I actually laughed out loud at several points, and there are a few subtle easter eggs for podcasting and science fiction fans.
All in all, it was a very entertaining read, and I recommend it to fans of mysteries and thrillers. I imagine it would come especially in handy on trains, airplanes, road trips where someone else is driving, or appointments you are stuck waiting for--I certainly forgot my surroundings while reading it.
It was a fast read for me, only a few hours. As I hit the halfway point and all the threads started drawing together, I couldn't put it down--since it's an e-book, that means I barely checked Twitter and saved all incoming links to read later, a thing that is rare for my Internet attention span. The pacing of the book was pitch-perfect; Sawyer really shows his talent for the landslide finish. Since I'm better acquainted with the hydra-headed third-person-limited POV of his other book PREDESTINATION AND OTHER GAMES OF CHANCE, it was interesting to experience the tight first-person POV of AND THEN SHE WAS GONE. In some ways this choice of POV is limiting, as only the protagonist is given much chance to exposit and the antagonist/s's motivations and the effects of their actions on secondary characters are mostly unclear or thinly explored: but unreliable narrator's privilege may be a function of the genre.
I wasn't left guessing 'til the end, but that was okay. I figured out one key plot point 30 pages before the protagonist, and another about 10 pages early. Probably because the groundwork reminded me of two other stories, which I can't actually mention here to avoid spoilers. Other twists were definitely a surprise. Despite the tense and sometimes gruesome plot, I actually laughed out loud at several points, and there are a few subtle easter eggs for podcasting and science fiction fans.
All in all, it was a very entertaining read, and I recommend it to fans of mysteries and thrillers. I imagine it would come especially in handy on trains, airplanes, road trips where someone else is driving, or appointments you are stuck waiting for--I certainly forgot my surroundings while reading it.
December 15, 2010
I came into reading this book without knowing anything about it except that the author is a hell of a nice guy and sings like an angel and likes to wear natty hats. The hats more than anything else were a clue as to what I was getting, but only a small clue.
And Then She Was Gone reads most of the way through like the influences it wears on its sleeve -- great old hard-boiled detective fiction the likes of Hammett and Chandler -- with just hints that there's something much stranger than a kidnapping/murder/20th century-style crime polot going on, until wow, bang, surprise, there's a dash of techno-thriller thrown in, like a dash of tabasco on a nice helping of perfectly scrambled eggs.
In Clarke Lantham, Sawyer has created the perfect 21st century counterpart to Sam Spade et al: an ex-cop, clasically trained in the detective arts but technically savvy to the hilt. From GPS tracking to data mining, Clarke is a stranger to no tool that could be used to solve his cases. Far from perfect, though, he has to roll with a lot of punches taken and live with a lot of mistakes made.
The language, too, fits right in the good old San Fran crime tradition, taut and witty and occasionally extraordinarily funny ("all shorts and no scrotum" "Coincidence is a hemorrhoid on the ass of reality"). Lantham is the kind of guy you want to knock back a few good strong drinks with, but you might end up snorting some scotch up your nose while you listen to him spin his yarns.
I look forward to more of them!
And Then She Was Gone reads most of the way through like the influences it wears on its sleeve -- great old hard-boiled detective fiction the likes of Hammett and Chandler -- with just hints that there's something much stranger than a kidnapping/murder/20th century-style crime polot going on, until wow, bang, surprise, there's a dash of techno-thriller thrown in, like a dash of tabasco on a nice helping of perfectly scrambled eggs.
In Clarke Lantham, Sawyer has created the perfect 21st century counterpart to Sam Spade et al: an ex-cop, clasically trained in the detective arts but technically savvy to the hilt. From GPS tracking to data mining, Clarke is a stranger to no tool that could be used to solve his cases. Far from perfect, though, he has to roll with a lot of punches taken and live with a lot of mistakes made.
The language, too, fits right in the good old San Fran crime tradition, taut and witty and occasionally extraordinarily funny ("all shorts and no scrotum" "Coincidence is a hemorrhoid on the ass of reality"). Lantham is the kind of guy you want to knock back a few good strong drinks with, but you might end up snorting some scotch up your nose while you listen to him spin his yarns.
I look forward to more of them!
December 27, 2010
For those of you who hate reading long, boring reviews I'll cut to the chase: I LOVED THIS STORY. To use some really bad cliches Clarke Latham is a jaded ex cop with a heart of gold, a smart-ass attitude, and plenty of banter. Think David Addison (the Bruce Willis character) from Moonlighting without the gorgeous side-kick.
There are lots of shady characters up to no good here. The problem is that Latham knows something is afoot but has no idea what. He has to figure out who the players are, what part they are playing, and find a missing girl. Without getting himself killed in the process.
The pacing is fast; almost to the point of frenzied at some points. I whipped through it so fast that it left me breathless at the end. I would have probably enjoyed a few quieter stretches just to catch my breath and try to puzzle the caper out myself. That said, I was hooked so thoroughly at the end that the first thing I did was reach for the next book.
If you are craving a good detective story or mystery this book will satisfy you. If you like a little smart-ass humor from your leading men then this will give you a fix just long enough to procure the next Latham title.
There are lots of shady characters up to no good here. The problem is that Latham knows something is afoot but has no idea what. He has to figure out who the players are, what part they are playing, and find a missing girl. Without getting himself killed in the process.
The pacing is fast; almost to the point of frenzied at some points. I whipped through it so fast that it left me breathless at the end. I would have probably enjoyed a few quieter stretches just to catch my breath and try to puzzle the caper out myself. That said, I was hooked so thoroughly at the end that the first thing I did was reach for the next book.
If you are craving a good detective story or mystery this book will satisfy you. If you like a little smart-ass humor from your leading men then this will give you a fix just long enough to procure the next Latham title.
October 20, 2014
There's a lot I'd like to say on this short novel.
J Daniel Sawyer is great for his wit, characters, and really doing his homework. This book's action sequences shows that Sawyer's knowledge of guns, computer systems, and cars are beyond the typical action writer, and that realism really makes the action compelling.
It is also a Private eye mystery novel set in the 21st century, with all the technology and techniques of the period. This makes for an interesting spin on a genre I still have conceived as stuck in the 1940s. There's a little bit of taking the piss out of us millennials, but I know it's in good humour.
And Then She Was Gone is a great mystery novel, and I really recommend it to anyone who is compelled by a really great mystery and adventure. Perfect for a flight or train ride.
J Daniel Sawyer is great for his wit, characters, and really doing his homework. This book's action sequences shows that Sawyer's knowledge of guns, computer systems, and cars are beyond the typical action writer, and that realism really makes the action compelling.
It is also a Private eye mystery novel set in the 21st century, with all the technology and techniques of the period. This makes for an interesting spin on a genre I still have conceived as stuck in the 1940s. There's a little bit of taking the piss out of us millennials, but I know it's in good humour.
And Then She Was Gone is a great mystery novel, and I really recommend it to anyone who is compelled by a really great mystery and adventure. Perfect for a flight or train ride.
July 28, 2016
Clark Latham, Private investigator is a down to earth ex-cop. His language (thoughts) are that of a contemporary, witty, geeky guy. We often get descriptions that are something you would say among friends but not if you are 'writing'. You get a character from this millenium in a noir novel. The story has some interesting twists and concepts I wasn't expecting. And his secretary, future sidekick, look like she is going to be another interesting character. I'm waiting for the next book.
December 29, 2010
I remember the point which, as a reader, I felt the hook in the meat of my cheek -- 70% on my Kindle's progress meter. From that point to the end, this novel was quite engaging. But I think 70% worth of build-up is too much for all but the most stubborn of readers. If the author can flip this ratio in future novels, he has some real potential.
January 30, 2011
A very fun read. Not in a genre I usually gravitate to, but I'm looking forward to any sequels.
April 26, 2015
Different than what I expected. Pretty good read.
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