Blood
Drama, the new crime fiction thriller from
Christopher Meeks, is Meeks's first venture into genre fiction. Now, let's hope it is not his last, because
this one is great fun.
When Ian Nash, a Southern California
graduate student, unexpectedly finds himself callously dropped from his theatre
Ph.D. program, he realizes that more than just his future expectations have
changed. Now, because he was fired from
his teaching duties at the same time he was booted from the program, Ian is
also without a source of income. And
because a man needs money to survive, Ian decides to apply for work in a little
bank lobby coffee shop on his way home from the university.
His day is about to get a whole lot
worse.
What begins as just another Los
Angeles bank robbery suddenly goes very wrong.
As Ian watches from his assigned spot on the coffee shop floor, shots
are fired, people die, and, when the police show up, he is horrified to be
chosen as the designated hostage to accompany the robbers to their escape
vehicle. He will be even more horrified
when he realizes that one of the robbers is determined to eliminate any chance
that Ian will be around long enough to identify the gang to FBI
investigators. If he wants to live, Ian
has to find a way to escape –
and soon.
 |
| Christopher Meeks |
Blood
Drama is very much a thriller, but it is a
thriller with a romantic twist. Ian
Nash, as are several male characters from previous Christopher Meeks novels and
stories, is a well-intentioned, but rather naive, bumbler who sometimes
overestimates his own abilities. He
combines innocence and recklessness in a way that endears him to the reader as
much as it confounds the other characters in the novel. One can only imagine why he believes himself
more capable of finding the bank robbers than the FBI, even to running his own
sting, but he does. And when Ian begins
to woo the beautiful Latina FBI agent officially in charge of the
investigation, we see that his basic optimism about the future remains
intact.
Ian Nash is not an easily defeated
man. He is a winner in spite of himself,
and we love him for that.
(Review Copy provided by Publisher)
When you described him as a bumbler, I thought of Columbo, but that was more of an act, wasn't it?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're back!
I've missed you so am relieved to see you posting once again. Hope all is well.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth
The difference Susan is that this character is strictly an amateur when it comes to catching crooks...not a pro like Columbo. Good book.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth, thanks so much for the kind remark. Increasing family obligations are causing a real time crunch for me at the moment and I don't see things easing up anytime soon, unfortunately. I am part of that "sandwich generation" with family obligations on both sides of my own age group. It's not always easy but that's why they call it "family." I hope to do some blogging but it will, I'm sure, be limited for a while to come. Thanks again.
ReplyDelete