Wounded Earth

(Originally published at Red Adept Reviews.)

I obtained Wounded Earth, by Mary Anna Evans, from a copy sent to Red Adept Reviews.

Overall: 3 3/4 stars

Plot/Storyline: 4 Stars

I liked the idea here. It tapped into a lot of my personal fears as Babykiller's technique involved eco-terrorism and harming endangered animals. Perhaps the saddest scene for me was when a pilot had to contemplate the fact that without his knowledge he'd been made to do harm while crop dusting. That the deer drinking from the river, the herons eating fish, might be ingesting toxins. Even though the book takes place in 1995, it called up memories of the Gulf Coast Spill, and how many innocent animals would die simply because humans keep screwing up. For the people less tree huggy than myself, there was also the threat of things not working out to well for people either.

Characters: 4 stars

Larabeth was a terrific character. Smart. Strong. From the second she even suspected there might be a threat, she sought out help. Now, by Literary Law, local police are useless, but J.D. - a private detective she knew - was her first call. I love that we're told she's smart and logical and then she goes ahead and does smart and logical things. Early on, after Babykiller calls her for perhaps the second time she said to him, “If you're threatening me, it won't work,” ... “I may have been careless in the past, but no more. If you know so much about me, you know I can afford a security system, a gun, even a personal body guard, if that's what it takes.”

I love that. She does make mistakes, but she makes reasonable mistakes. Even some of her actions that backfired were logical given what she knew. When she was careless, she was careless in a way that most people could understand - in defense of people she cared about.

Babykiller didn't work for me at quite the same level. He was so powerful and the cards were so stacked in his favor, even with Larabeth's advantages, that it seemed too much. He wasn't clever as much as well-connected. It was simply too much like he was waving a magic wand and never breaking a sweat rather than a Hannibal Lecter level villain. I felt he needed to be charismatic or really creepy in his conversations with Larabeth, but while his words were vile they were never clever. Some of his actions and threats interested me, but he did not.

Another character, Cynthia, was quite interesting and could carry her own book easily. J.D, the private detective, never gelled as a complete character for me, but I can't say why. I guess it's enough that Larabeth liked him.

Writing Style: 3 1/2 Stars

I'm a fan of the author. I'd read a mini anthology by her called Offerings that pretty much knocked me on my derriere. I have to say that Wounded Earth did not quite meet my expectations based on that previous effort, but much of what I'd enjoyed before was present. I think of Mary Anna as a very smart writer and this book didn't disappoint in that respect, but I kept thinking Wounded Earth should have been tighter. The story has a lot of things happening, and at least one major subplot, and yet it still felt like the pace of the first 50% or so was slow and that there was a little too much repetition. The nature of the story made me want a roller coaster ride, but things unfolding too leisurely for those thrills and chills to kick in until the book was over half over. This slower pace, however, worked beautifully for her in Offerings.

However, individual scenes were excellent, particularly the scenes in which Babykiller arranges for something truly vile to happen.

There was also a moment when the author really stepped into the narrative. The book took place in 1995 and the narrative voice sounded like the story was concurrent with that time. At about the 67% mark and at a crucial point, the tone changed for a couple paragraphs for, there's no other way to say it, the author to step in and remind us specifically that it's 1995 and explain why the thing that was about to happen (a tech snafu) would not occur today. I suppose it felt important to do this, but it was momentarily jarring and not necessary if the reader had been paying any attention.

Editing: 3 1/2 Stars

There was a sporadic formatting glitch that involved a couple paragraphs in a row to have a right justification. Beyond that, Glinda from The Wizard of Oz got called Glenda. There was sprinkling of typos and combined words. A minor character's last name changed. A store's name changed from The Spy Stop to The Spy Place within a couple paragraphs. The errors, while not completely over the top, were enough to alter the reading experience.