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Title: Sidewinder Requiem
Subtitle: A Mike Bishop Novel
Author: Jess Butcher
Narrator: Paul Fleschner
Format: Unabridged
Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
Language: English
Release date: 04-01-14
Publisher: Jesse C. Butcher
Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Modern Detective
Publisher's Summary:
When a friend's mutilated body is discovered at a roadside park along the Kansas Interstate, Mike Bishop sets out on a quest to unravel the mystery of the man's death. But after his most promising lead disappears into the wintery depths of an Oklahoma lake, Bishop finds himself at a dead-end.
As he considers his few remaining leads, attorney Megan Armstrong asks Bishop to accept a missing person case. Megan fears the missing man, once a part-time investigator for her law firm, may have become involved with the wife of a client, a client who has since been murdered.
Bishop locates the missing man with little difficulty. However, upon questioning, the man reveals an unexpected detail that may connect the murder of Megan's client with that of Bishop's friend. Armed with the new information, Bishop enlists the help of former Marine Corps Sergeant, Abraham Lincoln Decker and together, they encounter an eccentric cast of barmaids, blackjack dealers, and geriatric bikers as they search to unravel the mystery that links the two murders.
The investigation eventually leads Bishop and Decker to Sidewinder, a small town in western Kansas where they uncover a slimy underworld of child prostitution, black market military weapons, and domestic terrorism. But before they can expose the secret militia organization responsible for the two murders, they must face a killer more monstrous than any they have ever imagined.
Members Reviews:
There's potential here
There are things that I really like about this book, and things that I could live without.
Although Butcher is not as good a stylist as Lee Child, this book shares an appealing understatement with the Jack Reacher novels. Too many action novelists get carried away in their explosions, and they start to sound like a twelve-year-old boy. Though there's gritty action aplenty in this book, the situations aren't hyped up. This is a big plus.
Also, this novel revolves around scenarios that remain unsettled and unexplained. Yeah, there's a conspiracy -- but it's not all-knowing, and it doesn't explain all of the bad deeds that take place. And, in fact, the protagonist isn't even the guy who ultimately puts all the pieces together -- even if he is the catalyst for all the discoveries. These structural details really add verisimilitude.
Plus, Bishop is not indestructible. He takes a significant beating a couple times in this book, and indeed, he won't survive more than three or four novels like this one. And he makes mistakes -- not bumbling mistakes, but mistakes nonetheless.
Still, this is some pretty unpolished work. Butcher's style, as I mentioned above, is ragged. It swings from very matter-of-fact to almost expressionistically vivid, with no apparent reason. Having these swings in voice accompany shifts in time, or in shifts to narrate other characters, would have been nice.
And there are errors. Quite a few. Things like possessives in the place of plurals and other penny-ante lack of attention to detail. Butcher does know how to use some big and/or intellectually complicated words and imagery, so it's not a case of him being a simpleton (hey, some action novelists are just flat stupid, but that's not his problem at all).
