I just finished Greg Rucka's Finder. I liked it a lot, so
please don't take the following comments as criticism, I mean
them more as classification.
Kevin recently commented that some felt Rucka's Shooting at
Midnight was comic booky. He felt it was "just good
pulpy."
Well, I'm not sure I want to try to distinguish between those
two, but Rucka's world is some sort of heightened reality
that does not quite intersect with the everyday world.
For instance, the ambush in New York took place in a real
place where I've been and was built on a real world situation
(the shift from two-way to one-way traffic on Third Avenue).
So I could picture it very clearly. However, I got no sense
that this was happening in the real world. Even though a big
point is later made about Yossi's ammunition being training
rounds which would not put innocent bystanders at risk, I had
not previously gotten the feeling that any were. The action
is presented in such a way that you are there, but with the
bodyguards, Atticus in particular (it is a first person
narrative, after all), not as a witness on the street. Even
the cops' few comments about Atticus being a cowboy, causing
shootouts on their streets come off as lip service.
However, there is never any "collateral damage," not even at
the hands of the bad guys. There never even seems to be a
possibilty that there might be, not even when there is live
gunfire, not to mention stun grenades and tear gas, going off
during extractions in residential buildings. Perhaps this is
because everyone, on both sides of the law
(three sides? many characters float somewhere between legal
and illegal), is a professional. As professional warriors,
they do not even recognize anyone else. No one else even
exists in their world.
Perhaps it's the first person (and the knowledge of later
books in the series), so you know he will ultimately survive,
but even Atticus's multiple injuries don't seem too
worrisome. Isn't it part of the genre that the hero takes a
licking, but keeps on ticking? This goes for the emotional
wounds, as well.
I guess it all boils down to the characters being larger than
life and viewed from the distance of the real world. You are
never immersed, much less lost, in this world, as opposed to,
say, Jack O'Connell's world, where you feel you are living in
Quinsigamond (sp?).
Still, for a fast and furious comic booky/pulpy read, Rucka's
a good choice.
Mark
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