The Informationist by Taylor Stevens: A review

Hmmm...A super intelligent gender ambiguous female, who was born in Central Africa to indifferent parents, ran away to a gunrunner and his gang when she was a teenager and became a tough, butch member of the gang earning the respect of all those brutal customers. Haunted by an abusive, tortured background, she grew up to be an emotionally crippled, socially inept adult whose super gifts (which included speaking 22 languages!) allowed her to construct a whole world for herself - a world where she was the unrivaled ruler. The character sounds vaguely familiar, like someone we may have met in a best-selling trilogy not so very long ago.

This, however, is not Lisbeth Salander and the writer is not Stieg Larsson. Taylor Stevens wrote this book and it is her first. One gets the feeling that she has definitely read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and has lifted the plot right down to the missing and presumed dead heiress and transferred it onto a Texas and then African landscape.

There's nothing wrong with a writer being inspired by another writer or even with that writer using the outline of a previous story to construct his/her own story. After all, there hardly is anything new under the sun and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Unfortunately, this bit of flattery falls a bit flat in the character development department and it is often repetitive in its descriptive parts.

The main character here is Vanessa (aka Michael, aka Essa) Munroe, the tortured, kick-ass heroine who has built a thriving business using her own unique set of gifts and expertise in extracting and collating information for her clients. Those clients include corporations, heads of state, and private clients who can meet the price for her services. Munroe grew up in Africa but has not returned since she left there about a decade before. Now she is based in Dallas but globe-trots right around the world.

She is offered the unusual job, outside the parameters of her normal work, of looking for the stepdaughter of a Houston oil billionaire who disappeared in Africa four years earlier. Other investigators have tried to find out what happened to her, without success. Now the billionaire wants Vanessa/Michael to try, but he insists that she take along Miles Bradford, a bodyguard who will watch her back. Vanessa/Michael certainly does not need a bodyguard but it is part of the contract and she agrees to it.

Back in Africa, in the land of her childhood, Vanessa/Michael meets old friends and lovers and quickly runs afoul of the corrupt government. But soon she is consumed by the mystery of the missing girl, even as she finds herself cut off and facing implacable enemies who will see her dead before they will allow her to find the answer to the mystery. Maybe she will need that bodyguard after all.

Parts of this book sound like a romance novel is trying to break through the facade of the thriller. Overall, I found it pretty predictable, but not so terrible for a first effort. This is one of the two first novels by Texas authors that my Mystery Book Club has read in recent months. It is probably not a book that I would have chosen to read on my own, but it was an okay, two-star read.

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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