“This business about fairy tales having happy endings – that was bull shit. Sometimes people melt. People go away. People die. And we’re left with stories and memories, which, if we’re lucky, will be good stories and good memories and then we get on with our life.”

Hard News

Realize there are a couple of words here I should enlist in the sensor board but I thought I will leave it as it is. I liked it that way. And the lines are from the book what the title says is, Hard News by Jeffrey Deaver. This is my first Deaver book. Have to admit, I have never heard the name before stumbling up on it in another blog. And this book became the choice because it seemed the shortest of Deaver’s in my library, at 291 pages. Hmm, a little too long for my standards.

Thriller. But to be honest, not my kind of writing. Not sure if I will take another Deaver for a long time. Sure there were enough to keep you going. To make you want to return to the book whenever you were distracted. And it was easy to like Rune, the young woman who takes the book forward. It also helped she was a journalist; they always held my admiration, journalists did.

I was glad there was no exaggerated content of romance plunged in as did some thrillers in the strong misconception it added more thrill. There was a boyfriend in the background who appears only at the right times and not lurking around for too long. Another man was more prominent in the story. A convict named Randy Boggs. The story opens with young Rune seeing a letter sent to Network, the channel she worked for, from Randy Boggs, a convict who declared in his letter his innocence and a plea to get him out of there. It was more than 3 years ago and no one was ready to give him a second chance. No one believed him, except Rune. “I believe he is innocent”, a line oft repeated.

Randy meanwhile has his own trouble in the prison where a couple of other prisoners were trying “to move on him”; to kill him. They will keep trying and Rune had to do something immediately or there would be no innocent man she could get out of prison.

Rune has an unexpected and rather uninvited guest coming to her life. A 3 year old girl called Courtney. Abandoned by her young mother with Rune, the 2 becomes a part of each other’s life. I loved all the part of the girl in the book. The way she talked in monosyllables, with one line of thought sometimes and repeating one word after an adult was all so natural you could almost see the girl talking right in front of you. She was one emotional tie up Rune couldn’t help but adopt into her life. Sam Healy, the boyfriend was just a comfort.

Courtney: “I want juice”
Rune: “Say please”
Courtney: “I want please”

As Rune takes the story of Randy Boggs to Piper Sutton, the anchorwoman of ‘Current Events’ hosted in the channel she worked for, she struggles a lot to get a point across the tough lady. She fights harder in the days that follow with Piper behind her and Randy Boggs fighting for his life in the prison. It only draws respect for the young woman who sticks to her purpose through thick and thin. And also unveils several other strong characters in the play. Piper Sutton is given a strong tough-lady character; who rose all through her career admirably. Randy Boggs gets the reader’s immediate sympathy with his description of the only smells in the prison which made spring too far away and the world outside however near it was, an impossible destination.

Characterization of every one who mattered in the book was neatly taken care of. Jack Nestor, the fat tough guy who remains mysterious through half the book as he moves from one place to another with an unrevealed purpose in mind. Lance Hopper, the ex-head of the Network channel who was allegedly murdered by Randy, also emerges to the reader as one who dedicated his whole self for the channel and who also did right by justice. Sam Healy, the bomb squad detective shows a softer side with regard to Rune and Courtney. Lee Maisel, to whom Rune reports to, shows up as a supportive superior. Severn Washington brought Michael Clarke Duncan to mind with his huge psyche and protective self as regards Randy.

What repelled me from the book was the way it was written. I somehow place a lot of importance on how something is conveyed than what is infact conveyed which is probably the wrong way to look at things. The storyline too was infact a little disappointing in the end when there were too many twists and turns, it almost seemed like a pathetic last-minute attempt to make it all so wonderfully unsuspecting and hence more exciting for an eager reader. Not quite professional, I felt, something was deinfitely lacking. I appreciate the journalism factor playing throughout the book and even the way the small bits, which I feared might be left unattended to, were finally linked.

Rune too failed to impress me though she has a quite likeable and strong character. I, like Piper Sutton did not like her way of sputtering out words. She seemed to talk like a punk, early 90’s teenager with lots of “like” and “sort of” inserted in every line. She was a media person, whose job it was to talk good! And what irked me more was her annoying habit of going way too detailed and blabbering away when she is asked a simple thing like “How do you get along with the little girl?”. Too much, the girl talks you cant help feeling. But then I liked her, and there was a little personal factor too for that. She had my same build, both height and weight surprisingly, and the same profession I am trying to end up in. Hehe. Maybe if it was made a movie, I could take Rune’s part ;-)