54: A New Author

My friend Chadya was keen to help me find some new authors to read and so bought me a bunch of books for Christmas. Knowing my love of Ted Dekker, and also that her husband Scott and I have very similar taste in books, she bought me Deadfall by Robert Liparulo.

She wasn't sure if I would like the book, so I said I would read the first paragraph...I find I can usually get a sense for an author's style from the first page or so...well, the first page of Deadfall had me groaning in pain. I could tell that the story was going to be interesting enough. In fact, the story itself had me hooked right away. But the narrative was so corny I thought this was going to be a really, really painful read. Later on I read it to Andrew and he just groaned, 'It's like a bad cliche'.

Lucky for me (and Liparulo), his writing improved drastically after that.

Though the story reminded me of some of Dekker's more recent storylines, I liked how this one played out SO much better. Dekker seems to me as if he's torn between writing a really good thriller, and trying too hard to be like Frank Peretti. AND his stories seem to be getting a little too similar lately. Reading Deadfall was a little like watching 24. For every success the characters had, three bad things happened. REALLY intense. I remember thinking to myself, this would make an awesome movie...though it would end up with at least a 14A rating, so maybe not one I'd want to watch!!

Anyway, it was a great novel and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on his other two (or more?!) books!