Deadfall
As Robert Liparulo’s third try at a thriller, DEADFALL is better than his previous efforts, but still not enough to justify the hype. As with last year’s GERM, it has a simple setup that’s ripe for high-concept treatment, but executed too much.
Four guy’s guys are taking a vacation from life’s problems in the form of a hunting trip in the vast expanse of the Canadian wild. But what they don’t count on is becoming the hunted themselves. Yes, Virginia, it’s a little like DELIVERANCE, but with redneck phalli replaced by a high-tech disintegrator ray.
See, as the closest tiny little town has just found out the hard way, a small group of young people – ranging in age from their late teens to early 20s, one of them even named “Bad” – has wheeled in on a Hummer and with a cutting-edge piece of weaponry that zaps things into smithereens. They’re video gamers bent on designing a real-life experience using townspeople as the expendables.
The local Mountie tries to get heroic, but doesn’t last long, and his wife and son are taken hostage. Back in the wilderness, the guys are just getting settled in – complete with beer-commercial aphorisms as “Guys, does it get any better than this?” – and prepped to hunt when the extreme ones roll up and explode some caribou.
Then it’s open season on the hunters, meaning yet another update on Richard Connell’s classic short story “The Most Dangerous Game.” There’s nothing wrong with modern takes on that sort of thing, but for a premise this shopworn where everything turns out exactly as you’d expect, there’s absolutely no reason for it to go on as long as it does.
DEADFALL clocks in at around 500 pages, whereas it should be around half that in order to be the “white-knuckle” read that Liparulo promises and that I was very much looking forward to reading. He has a tendency to overwrite, and it proves a detriment to his good ideas time and time again. It’s the same reason why Roger Corman kept his B-movies under the 90-minute mark; any longer and you risk exhausting the audience. –Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• GERM by Robert Liparulo
Afraid I’ll have to disagree with you on this one. I liked it a lot. It wasn’t the typical “B-movie” thriller you imply. Where Liparulo excels is in building characters you really care about (at least he does for me)-more “Deliverance” than “Most Dangerous Game.” Plus, he’s a good writer. I did like this one better than “Germ,” because I think the characters were better developed. Aside from the characters, I enjoyed the plot, the thrill of the chase and what they were going to do to get out of tight situations. I thought the plot twists were intelligently handled. I guess to each his own, but I’d read this one again before ANY James Patterson story.