2012; 516 pages. Book 4 (out of 10) in the “Matthew Corbett” series. New Author? : No. Genres : Historical Fiction; Colonial America;
Thriller. Overall Rating: 8*/10.
New York City, 1703 CE. Someone is blowing up buildings!
Whoever’s doing it is also painting graffiti on walls next to be exploding buildings. Actually, the graffiti is rather minimal:
just a single name: MATTHEW CORBETT. It’s
logical to suppose that’s the perpetrator, bragging about his crimes.
When Matthew Corbett arrives upon the scene, he’s quite astonished to see his name scrawled on the walls. He knows he’s not the arsonist, even if others in the crowd are giving him distrustful looks. He’s more than ready to start investigating the crimes, and an obvious question is already giving him a starting point.
Why is the real
perpetrator painting Matthew’s name on a nearby wall each time he blows up a
building?
What’s To Like...
The Providence
Rider is the fourth book in Robert McCammon’s “Matthew
Corbett” now-completed ten-book historical thriller series. The riddle of Matthew’s name being in close
proximity to blown-up buildings is readily solved and Matthew and two
companions, Berry and Zed, quickly find themselves on a ship headed for Pendulum
Island in the Bermudas. Several shady
characters accompany our heroes in order to make sure they don’t change their
minds.
An old adversary is there to greet Matthew when the ship reaches its destination, wanting him to do a sleuthing job, and promising him ample recompense. I love it when good guys are persuaded to get in cahoots with bad guys. The book’s title references Matthew’s acceptance of the job; “Providence Rider” is colonial slang for “Problem Solver”. Not surprisingly, the straightforward assignment rapidly becomes more complex and dangerous.
The Providence Rider is
first a foremost a Historical Thriller, with lots of Action and Intrigue
infused into it. Things proceed at a
rapid pace, with a bunch of baddies for Matthew to rub shoulders with, a couple of
which are beautiful and deadly women.
The 34 chapters average out to about 15 pages/chapter and there are five
drawings included which I thought added a nice touch. Timewise, the story is set in 1703-04 CE, and
I’m really loving this historical fiction series because of the rarely used era that it's set in.
Things build to an exciting climax
that, with everyone—good-guys and baddies alike— fleeing for their lives. There are casualties amongst both the white-hats
and the black-hats. The scene then shifts
back to New York, where several secondary plotlines are resolved, plus one
major romantic one. The tale closes with a
teaser for the next book in the series.
Kewlest New Word ...
Fearnaught
(n.) : a thick, heavy, shaggy woolen
overcoat.
Others:
Puffet (n.).
Ratings…
Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 998
ratings and 171 reviews.
Goodreads: 4.24*/5,
based on 3,517 ratings and 349 reviews.
Excerpts...
“I may sit?” Sirki motioned to a chair. Matthew nodded again, though he was concerned
about the chair’s survival. Sirki eased
himself into it and stretched out his long legs. “Ah.
Now, I’m in . . . how would you say? . . . pig’s paradise?”
“Hog heaven,” Matthew suggested.
“Exactly.
Let me show you I have no weapons.”
Sirki lifted his arms, shrugged off his cloak, and patted around his
midsection.
“Do you need any?”
This time a grin burst forth. “No, I do not.”
Matthew reasoned it was time to keep his
mouth shut. (loc. 842)
“You had some trouble today.” It was a statement of fact, as dry as the
fish bones in the skeleton collection.
“A mite,” Matthew allowed.
“Hm.
One of my stone seahorses is missing from the library balcony. Also the curtain cords are gone. There is—was—a wine bottle on the
ledge. What can you tell me about that?”
“Nothing.”
Matthew shrugged. His heart was a
furious drummer. “Much.”
“You shield your enemies. Why?”
“I take care of my own business.”
“That’s admirable. Stupid, possibly . . . but admirable.” (loc. 3941)
Kindle Details…
The
Providence Rider sells for $11.99 right now at Amazon. The rest of the books in the series generally
range in price from $11.99 to $15.99, with
occasional discounts on select e-books, usually to $2.99. Robert McCammon has other series and
standalone novels for your Kindle; they normally range in price anywhere from $2.99
to $11.99.
It was a good day,
he decided, to not be a ghost. (loc.
3651)
I noted 19 cusswords in the
first 20% of The Providence Rider, all of them being of the “milder 4-letter words” type. Later on, there were a
couple of f-bombs, plus some references to female dogs and posteriors, as well as one
roll in the hay. There were a couple of
typos: assinine/asinine; whether/whither;
was/were; and treel-imbs/tree-limbs;
but these were sparse enough to not be distracting. A
number of mysterious “Kk” notations popped up between paragraphs, but I suspect
this was more the fault of the conversion-to-Kindle software, not the author.
Each character had his/her
unique traits, but they were all either “all good” or “all evil”. I’m partial to "gray" characters, but
have to say it was interesting to watch white-hats and black-hats forced to
cooperate with one another. There
weren’t a lot of plot twists, although that’s what you hire a Providence Rider
to minimize.
Enough of the quibbling. For me The Providence Rider was a well-written
page-turner, with oodles of action, intrigue, and skullduggery jumping up on almost every page. Next up is The River of
Souls, which is on my Kindle, awaiting my attention. Stay tuned.
8 Stars. One last thing. There is a lifesaving scene in The Providence Rider that’s incredibly over-the-top. It reminded me of an old James Bond movie where Pierce Brosnan jumps out of an airplane in mid-flight over mountains, without a parachute, and ends up somehow deftly skiing up to ski lodge café. If you remember and enjoyed that Bondian antic, you'll love the one here.
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