2009; 278 pages. Book 6 (out
of 11) in the Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels series. New Author? : No. Genre: Thriller; Crime Fiction; Women Sleuths. Overall Rating : 8*/10.
It’s
showdown time. Both parties agree on
that, and both agree that it is going to be a fight to the death. On one side, there’s Lieutenant Jacqueline
“Jack” Daniels of the Chicago Police Department. On the other there’s Alexandra “Alex” Kork,
psychotic killer nonpareil.
Alex has good cause to hate Jack; half her face is permanently
disfigured by Lt. Daniels. But Jack has an
equally just cause to hate Alex, since the latter just murdered Jack’s fiancé.
You might think Jack has the advantage because she has friends, family, and
fellow cops to help her, while Alex is strictly a lone wolf. But those associates and loved ones can be targeted by Alex, which means Jack needs to protect them as best she can from someone who's out to destroy anyone and everyone important to Jack.
And Alex is very innovative when it comes to devising ways to execute
anyone who has the misfortune to cross her path.
Including the clever use of various explosives.
What’s To Like...
Cherry Bomb is book six in the “Jack Daniels”
series, and the third part (I think) of a trilogy featuring the ultimate
badass, Alexandra Kork. I don’t think it
is a spoiler to reveal that the Alex/Jack blood feud will be finally resolved here.
As
with any J.A. Konrath book, there’s lots of cussing, lots of violence, lots of
sex, and lots violence combined with sex.
There are thrills and spills on every page, and plenty of wit and oodles of snarky dialogue. If any of this is not
your cup of tea, you really shouldn’t be reading books by Konrath.
The
writing is half first-person POV (Jack’s) and half third-person (Alex’s). More on this in a bit. There aren’t a lot of characters to keep
track of. Jack has her circle of
recurring friends and coworkers; and anyone that Alex meets up with has a very
limited life expectancy, whether they know Jack or not. Phineas Troutt
gets fleshed out, and there's a noteworthy new character, Slappy, who I hope
will show up in again.
I
learned a new Police slang term, “pigstick”, which Wikipedia and Google totally
fail to cover, although Google Images has lots of pics of it. The lyrics to “Stairway To Heaven” were also
explained; I found that to be quite enlightening. And I chuckled at the new interpretation to
the corrupted musical phrase “He ain’t heavy, he's your brother”.
Everything
leads up to a suitably tense and exciting climactic showdown. It wasn’t particularly twisty, but it was a
stutter-step ending, which is always fun. At
60 chapters covering 278 pages, you’re never far from a convenient place to stop reading for the night.
Excerpts...
“What did he do?”
I finally asked.
“Bank
robbery. He tied three road flares
together, walked into the drive-through lane, and placed the flares in the
vacuum tube container.”
“Live flares?”
“No. Unlit flares.
Along with a note saying it was dynamite, and he would set it off unless
they gave him two thousand dollars.”
Coursey handed me
a photo taken by the bank surveillance camera.
The man stood outside the bank window, holding a small black box with an
antenna sticking out of the top. He was
smiling and waving.
“That’s a remote
control car radio,” I said.
“The tellers
didn’t know that.” (loc.
8158. Note: location numbers are
relative to the bundled version of this trilogy, which is the format in which I
read this book.)
“Why else would I
have toilet paper in my purse?”
Phin
shrugged. “Emergencies? Afraid of being caught without it? How should I know? I’m not a chick, I don’t own a purse. I don’t know why you women keep half that
stuff in there.”
“I only keep
essentials in my purse.”
“You’ve got a
wind-up plastic nun in there.”
“That’s
Nunzilla. She shoots sparks out of her
mouth.”
“That’s
essential?”
“It was … a
gift.” (loc. 10152)
Kindle Details...
Cherry
Bomb presently sells for $4.99 at Amazon. The other eleven e-books in the series vary
in price between $3.99 and $4.99. J.A. Konrath offers a number of other novels
in the same thriller genre, and they seem to be in a similar price range, with a
couple as low as $0.99. I read Cherry Bomb as part of a bundle of
Books 4, 5, and 6, and right now it's selling for $9.99. J.A. Konrath generously and frequently discounts
his books and bundles, and it is not unusual to see them temporarily offered for free.
Monkey bondage was our cue to leave. (loc. 10253)
As
with any other J.A. Konrath book, novel, believability is not a high
priority. Alex goes on a killing
mega-spree, and the police never seem to connect the dots. Amazon even lists this as a “police
procedural”, which is a complete laugh.
Action and excitement trump any sense of realistic situations here. If you’re not in the mood for
senseless violence, the piling up of the bodies might get a bit tedious.
OTOH, the thought that Alex puts into making each execution unique and
innovative would make Tim Dorsey’s Serge Storms
smile with envy. And I confess, I’m a
big Serge Storms fan.
So
throw believability out the window, and settle in to enjoy murder for the sake
of murder, and snarkiness for the sake of snarkiness. If you approach Cherry
Bomb with that perspective, you’ll find it to be a thoroughly
entertaining page-turner.
8 Stars. Book
introductions are usually skippable, but I found the author’s comments at the
start of this book to be quite interesting. Here's part of it:
“I
tried my best to make the Jack Daniels series different. Not only from other mysteries and thrillers,
but I also wanted each book to have an individual flavor. In Whiskey Sour,
I mixed funny with scary. In Bloody Mary, I had a big twist in the middle. In Rusty Nail,
I had multiple bad guys. In Dirty Martini, I didn’t have any blood. In Fuzzy Navel,
I wrote in real time.
With Cherry Bomb, I did something no
other writer has ever done. The villain
gets half the book. (…) Fifty percent of the novel is in the bad
guy’s point of view.”
AFAIK, J.A. Konrath is still writing stories in the Jack Daniels
series. Here's hoping he never stops
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