Wild Thing: A Novel (Dr. Pietro Brnwa)
This is a throwback to that time a decade ago when praise went to crime novels that “transcended the genre,” or tried to. Thus this promising story of a hired killer on the run from his own clients is constantly being stalled by digressions that are—depending on your point of view—fascinating or just mannered. We meet the killer after he’s taken a job on a cruise ship, and the descriptions of boat life are dead-on. We follow him when he’s hired by a billionaire to join the search for a mysterious sea creature in the northern U.S., and the narrative is propulsive. But the “transcend” argument believes it’s low rent to tell a story, so we have flashbacks, dream sequences, and endless footnotes. We get disquisitions on the Jewish state, the lives of trees, and the fallacy of cryogenics. One senses an author who can’t quite keep his mind on his book or maybe wishes he was writing a different book. Could be that’s why the intimate moments sound like scenes from an Adam Sandler movie. --Don Crinklaw