Into the Fire

The CFBA Tour took a unique turn in its November selections by including self-published books. If I’m not mistaken, there were three of these novels listed and distributed to readers this month. As you know, I intentionally picked a Marcher Lord Press entry to assess and in my review gave the guys two thumbs up for an entertaining story and well done book. Today I’m going to tackle a no-frills novel written and published by Russ White titled Loss of Carrier.

I checked out Russ White’s website which offers little information about the author or the origin of this novel other than to say Russ has been a network engineer, evident by the geek-speak throughout this heavily tech-laden story. On a brief dedication page in the front of the book the author gives credit to his apparent editor, bringing me to the conclusion that the story was actually edited before being printed into book form. Before I begin the review, I’d like to say I appreciate the expense of sending out books to the CFBA readers. Even choosing media mail to transport several books indicates a willingness to invest in and market his book.

Let me remind you I know all about first novels, and those of you who follow this blog have read my commentary on how some of us without a lot of initial writing experience tend to produce that “first novel feel”, especially if we elect to self-publish our work. This is precisely how self-publishing got its bad name or the stigma that’s still attached to a self-published novel. Let’s face it, the enormously successful self-published The Shack did not sport the best writing, was one long sermon couched in mostly dialogue, but it struck a chord and attained huge success. In doing so it was the exception not the rule.

Loss of Carrier is a tech-babble story with several weak plot points and a somewhat emotionally fragile protagonist whose personal pain either seems too exaggerated at times or insufficiently explained to warrant his complete lack of trust issues. The copy-editing errors are numerous indicating inferior final proofing before printing unless this ARC was not the final version of the book. Combine those editing misses with occasional poor and extensive dialogue, some grammar issues, and a conflicted protagonist who can handle a gun but not a woman and you’ve got a first novel which smacks of amateurism. The repetition and over-explanations, identifications, and manipulations of computer networking might serve the geek readers well, but the average reader will skip over much of it in search of more plot revelations.

The protagonist Jess Wirth happens upon a murder in the basement of his workplace where all the servers and the cables keep his Opti-data workplace operational. Down there to fix a technical problem, he sees a bunch of the tiles disrupted which cover the massive series of cables and when he begins to return them to their proper positions, he finds one of his coworkers strangled in a mess of yellow cables. The police are called and the man’s death is ruled a suicide. Sometime later a cleaning woman is murdered in the facility and suddenly the police are paying attention to what Jess has thought all along: the first man’s death wasn’t a suicide. There’s an additional investigation going on behind the scenes coinciding with the murders and unknown to Jess involving an attractive woman who’s caught his attention.

The setting is there for a decent mystery, but this particular story is bogged down with exorbitant tech-babble, some silliness involving flower deliveries, the extreme overuse of the initials PWC, a too-talky, preachy romantic situation, weak plot points specifically concerning the suicide/murder conflict, and some needing-more-development characterizations. Precede this with a pointless prologue featuring the first dead man’s dying moments.

I don’t know Russ White’s writing experience, but he’ll improve dramatically from this effort if he studies the work of other writers in his chosen genre. Some people need the craft books to help their writing. Others need to read more novels and absorb the techniques of the good writers. Right now Loss of Carrier is a fairly typical example of a first-time self-published novel.

Father, you know Russ’s heart. You know what you have for him to do. Lord, I pray you would direct his steps and his stories. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.